Still Unbroken
by LUNAtic2111
Summary: Sequel to Still Going Strong! Rose always believed in free will, love and a good fist fight. Now, most of this doesn't seem to be what it used to be. When she has to run from a danger she doesn't understand and cannot fight against, and a new form of magic jeopardizes what she values most, how far will she go to keep her team alive and her love by her side?
1. Brambles

**I'm back with my second story! This is a sequel to my first fanfiction Still Going Strong, but it will be understandable if you haven't read that. It starts during The Fiery Heart, aaand: it is entirely a Rose POV!**

Who would have thought that my sweet loving boyfriend can be such a traitor? Looking into the eyes of said sweet, loving face – others would have called him kick-ass and scary - I would never have expected this innocent smile to hide such evil thoughts. Oh yes, my beloved darling was housing the devil in his skin.

A constant stream of swearwords was running through my head as I disentangled myself from a thorny bunch of blackberry branches.

"Take the back road, he says," I found myself mumbling. "You're stealthier than me. I'm too tall. Should have known that smile was no compliment to my sneaking skills."

Now be done with the talking to yourself, I then scolded myself, albeit not out loud anymore. My favorite jeans had just received a nasty scratch to the left butt pocket.

"Don't worry, your butt doesn't need any pockets to rock," I told myself. Out loud again, because the boyfriend aforementioned would not do my butt this much-needed favor, seeing as words like 'butt' were too outrageously obscene to ever come out of his mouth.

Now, while the exasperatingly tall and well-spoken male in mention was comfortably sauntering up the front yard of a neat little house in the suburbs of Dallas, I was fighting my way through the brambles to reach the backyard of the same direction.

I mean little branchy made short work of the sleeve of my fairly new t-shirt. Well, if I arrived at the house with my clothes torn to shreds, I resolved to at least profit from it by depriving my boyfriend of any benefits a half-naked body might promise.

If I could restrain myself, that is.

I tore myself loose from another wicked part of the plant and almost tumbled right into the little house's backyard. During my fight with the local vegetation, I hadn't registered how close I had come to the building. Great, Rose. You're too busy talking to yourself to notice when you're stomping into a possible Strigoi lair.

Not only that, but there were also Moroi in the house – one at least, though she could well be dead by now.

I made earnest with my sneaking skills now and ducked behind the last row of brambles. The yard was small and appeared entirely unheeded, though not as badly overgrown as what lay behind me. I had a good view of the one-storied building, which was a little withdrawn from the road and bordered the scanty forest I was coming from. The windows facing me opened to the kitchen – I could see a kitchen counter and a few kitchen utensils hanging on the walls.

I had to enter the back garden and near the house in plain side if I wanted to come from this side at all. And since I had arranged with my evil boyfriend to do so, this was exactly what I was going to do. I straightened myself and proceeded to cross the garden at a brisk, purposeful walk. No use in going slow when you were in full view.

The sun was sending its last evening rays over the horizon, and managed to reflect in the windows panes in a way that made it almost impossible for me to see inside. The sun reduced the risk of running into Strigoi, for a few more minutes at least, but it would set for good in a moment. I walked over the lawn to change my angle, and now could see much better inside.

What I saw inside was my boyfriend, in all his tall and gorgeous glory, holding a girl I had never before seen in his arms.

* * *

 **Ha ha. This is a very short teaser chapter, just to get started and to force me to write more, because the pressure to get new chapters written is a good driving force. I won't be able to update as often as I did with Still Going Strong (because for that one, I spent all my vacation typing away at my computer like a maniac), but I'll try my best. Tell me if you want to read more! Can anyone guess who the girl in** ** _the boyfriend's_** **arms is?**


	2. Spirit Sisters

"Guess the situation doesn't call for me barging in screaming and kicking, does it," I said to nobody in particular. Dimitri had his hands full, obviously, and the Moroi girl in his arms wasn't a good audience either, because she was in a dead faint.

"Like to see you try, though," another voice said. I had had an audience after all, it seemed. A weary-looking guardian was standing in a corner, huddled over another figure while Dimitri somewhat helplessly picked up the unconscious girl, apparently not knowing what to do with her. Even though his words could be interpreted as saucy, he appeared everything but. He looked like he had a few sleepless nights behind him and a mighty brawl to boot and was at the end of his strength and wisdom. What furthered this impression was the resigned way he bent over the person on the floor, of whom I could only see a shock of tangled black hair and shaking shoulders.

"Looks like we crashed a party," I said wryly.

"Yeah, it's our pity party," the stranger guardian murmured.

It was then I noticed Dimitri nodding towards something behind my back meaningfully. "Um.. Rose?"

I turned just in time to see two Strigoi running over the untidy lawn in our direction. Apparently, since I was the only one not tending to some sort of patient, the task of dealing with them fell to me. I made a quick jump out of the house – the place really didn't need a to-the-death battle taking place inside it – and took a defensive stance.

The first Strigoi immediately annoyed me by showing her large and dirty teeth in a broad grin as she charged me. I didn't even leave her the time to shut her ugly mouth before my stake plunged into her heart. The other one, a male, was more cautious, and required some ferocious kicking on my part before my stake found its aim.

I took a moment to make sure my opponents were no longer a threat to this world – as if my stake would miss, but one can never be too sure – and to ascertain that there were no more monsters coming at me, then I turned and went back inside the house.

The kitchen was empty, but I heard soft voices from the adjacent room. I followed them into a small sitting room, where Dimitri had deposited the unconscious girl onto a sofa. The other person, whom I could now discern to be a girl roughly the same age, was standing beside it, the stranger guardian's arms on her shoulder.

Dimitri went to meet me by the door, where we could have a whispered conversation in private.

"The guardian is the one who called us. Looks like he was right in seeking help. The girls look pretty shaken. And the spirit user girl collapsed right into my arms."

"Nina, right?" I said. Lissa had briefed us on this case, but she had had to hurry because we had to catch a flight immediately. "Did you get a chance to talk to the other one?"

"No," he said dejectedly. "She won't talk. She would probably be running now if not for her sister."

I guessed so. The girl had been a Strigoi before her spirit user sister restored her back to her dhampir form, if our intel was to be believed.

"She's a dhampir," I remarked.

"Yes. I guess Lissa's information did only go so far."

It had been a crazy day. Guardian headquarters had notified Lissa that there had been a call, telling them that they probably wouldn't believe it, but a Strigoi had been cured. They had answered that they believed it alright, because the majority of them had already been witness to a miracle like this, and the miracle's subject was standing right next to me: none other but my boyfriend Dimitri Belikov. Lissa had send the two of us over to investigate asap. Hence my presence in the suburbs of Texas via a bramble-ridden backyard.

"We need to get them to the safe house. There will be more guardians there," I said. Dimitri nodded.

"I wish there was time to explain more," he whispered. I understood. Having been in the same situation, he wanted to make this easier for this girl, even though he had never met her. I touched his shoulder briefly.

We neared the tired threesome again. This time, the dhampir girl lifted her face from where she'd watched her sister to meet our eyes. Hers were radiating that wild and desperate battle that I had seen in all those who had come back from a state worse than dead. This girl had been a monster and had only had hours to come to terms with what she'd done.

"Olive," Dimitri said in a calm voice. She blinked at him dazedly.

"We need you both to come with us. We can't stay here. There might be Strigoi coming."

 _Your old friends might come to see what you have become_ , was probably the meaning she derived from this, but I trusted Dimitri to do the talking. He knew best, after all.

"Olive," the other guardian said in a gentle voice.

Then the girl on the sofa stirred, and Olive almost cringed away from her. Involuntary, my mind was transported back to when I first saw Dimitri after he had been turned back. His rejection of me had hurt so much, but now I understood what had moved him. Olive must feel the same kind of horror for what she had put her sister through than Dimitri had felt for me then.

It was the sisters' guardian friend who took the first action. He scooped Nina into his arms and moved towards the door.

"We need to leave now," he said determinedly. "Olive."

She trudged along behind him like a doll on a string, her eyes fixed on her sister, who had closed her eyes again and was leaning her head against the guardian trustingly. Dimitri and I flanked the small procession as they stepped out on the narrow path that led to the street. Two cars were parked there: one that must be the other guardian's, and ours, a ways back so as not to draw attention.

We got into our car; I was driving, Dimitri next to me, and the girls and their guardian in the back. It was a strange arrangement, as we would usually never have allowed three strangers and potential threats to ride in our backs, but there was no splitting them up.

Dimitri kept a sharp lookout, as was the other guardian, but there were no more Strigoi jumping at us. The safe house was only a few minutes' drive away – not ideal, but the best we could get in what little time we had. Guardians were waiting for us in front of the house. Neither of us had said much during the ride.

"Where are we?" the Moroi girl asked slowly. She seemed to be regaining some of her strength.

"We need a feeder for her," I called to one of the guardians whom I picked at random. I had no idea about the structure of command here, but I guessed that Dimitri and I were high enough up to be making demands like this. The guardian was on his phone in a second.

"A safe house. Those guardians will take care of you," the strange guardian told her. He made sure the sisters were okay with going into the house before he let Dimitri draw him into a corner to have a word.

"You both need to get some rest," I told them. I wasn't the one you usually picked for bedside talk, but with a roomful of guardians, I guess I was as good as the next guy.

"I have seen what you've been though before," I said. "You will need a feeder and a good sleep, Nina. And you, Olive… Well, I think you should talk to Dimitri."

Feeling a little inadequate, I accompanied them to a large bedroom that a guardian showed us, where they both sat on the bed after some helpless standing around. Olive still had that spooked look when Dimitri came back.

"James is flying to Court to give a firsthand account of what happened with you," he explained. I guessed James was their guardian friend. "I'm sorry we have to take away the only familiar face in this situation, but what you did was remarkable, and we need every bit of information we can get. You are both still in no condition to travel, so we are staying here with you for a while."

Blank stares met his speech. Dimitri turned to me.

"Adrian should be arriving every minute now. Maybe you'd better wait for him up front. I'll stay here."

I nodded. As much as I wished to help those girls, Dimitri was the much better choice for that. I turned and, with a last look at them, left the exhausted sisters in his care.

….

Adrian showed up with the only member of the Palm Springs group that I had only heard about, but never met in person. I braced myself against any of the reproachful grimness about what I had done to him that he usually conveyed to me as I got up and went to greet him. And of course, his first words were a stab at Dimitri. There was more humor to it than there used to be, though; Adrian no longer seemed so bitter about our breakup. I had noticed this before, at Sonya's wedding, and attributed it to a possible and very sensational attraction to the Alchemist Sydney…

Having his accompanying guardian, Neil, send in to meet Dimitri – whom he seemed to venerate as the guardian hero he was- I could finally talk to Adrian in private. I just had to get one on him and pretend I fully expected him to have sex with every available girl in a fifty mile radius around Palm Springs. Not that that didn't sound like him. But I had the distinct impression that it merely sounded like who he used to be. It was for the best that I didn't communicate Dimitri's and my suspicions that there was something between him and Sydney. As a Moroi and an Alchemist, a relationship between them was a thing of the utmost impossibility anyway, and I would just embarrass him by implicating it.

His spirit work impressed me, though, seriously. There was nothing cloudy or unfocused about him when he finally got a good look at Nina and Olive. Olive, especially. By the way Nina looked at him when he did his mojo, he must have been using massive amounts of spirit. I hoped he would be okay afterwards. When Nina and he left for some "spirit talk", he clearly had trouble keeping upright and pretending he was alright. Using large amounts of spirit took a toll. I had seen it many times, last time in Nina when she fainted several hours after having exerted herself. He'd need a long rest now.

It was only after Nina came back to tell us Adrian had collapsed on her bed and she had joined Olive in hers that I withdrew with Dimitri to talk things over.

"What a girl. Reads about you and Sonya and just decides to try it herself. I think I like her guts," I said.

"She's brave, no doubt."

"I hope Olive will be able to… deal," I said. Dimitri only hummed in response.

"Any news from Sonya?" I changed the subject.

"She got a flight almost as soon as we did. She'll arrive in a few hours."

Sonya had had to cancel what remained of her honeymoon. Of course, the possibility to make a major breakthrough in an age-old Moroi problem warranted a shortening of her romantic travel through Europe with her new husband, Mikhail. I knew I hardly needed to feel sorry for her: she would be thrilled to examine this groundbreaking evidence of spirit being involved in a restored person's immunity against ever being turned Strigoi again.

"We need to get the blood to Court as soon as possible. Nina and Olive should come as well. Maybe Sonya will be able to see something, too, when she arrives," Dimitri said.

"I'll get a flight booked for you. You go and tell the sisters," I replied.

Two hours later, both sisters and Dimitri stood in front of the house, ready to go. Some of the other guardians had already left, some were going with them. They would have quite an entourage on their flight.

"Lissa will want to see you as soon as you have recovered sufficiently," I told the girls.

"Lissa?" Nina asked. "As in, Vasilisa Dragomir, the Queen?"

"The very one. Don't worry, she won't make you kneel or anything. She's nice."

It was weird to see people react this way to hearing they would meet my best friend: Nina looked at me with big eyes, seeming almost frightened at the thought. I guess that was how most people reacted when hearing that they were about to meet the ruling monarch of their entire race, the most highly venerated person Moroi society had to offer. That this person happened to be my best friend since first grade usually didn't reassure people any.

When the cars rolled down the street and left me alone in front of a somewhat dilapidated building containing a sleeping Adrian, a watching Neil and a waiting feeder lady, I sat down on the porch swing again. I had some time to kill, because I was sure Adrian wouldn't wake up for a few more hours. Time to think things through.

A new spirit user. One that had figured out how to cure a Strigoi by herself. And then just went ahead and did it. She sure was something, this Nina Sinclair. If she set to helping Sonya in her research with Olive's blood, there might be hope for a breakthrough yet.

This had been worth the hectic end to our first week of the semester. A slight sigh escaped me when I thought about how little quiet time we had in between catastrophes*. I would never have admitted it to anyone, but sometimes I found myself wishing for a little more normal life. Sometimes. Like, when I was rudely shaken from sleep with the words, _Rose, get up. We have work to do_. I mean, seriously, Dimitri could at least have thought of something that sounded less like straight out of a mobster B movie.

When I looked up from watching the tips of my worn-out shoes deep in thought, I realized who deeply in thought I had really been; I had not noticed the approach of the tall, wiry guy standing right before me watching me with a curious look.

"Dude!" I exclaimed before I could check myself. There was no danger; the guy was obviously Moroi, not Strigoi, and didn't seem anything but entirely harmless, but there was no way I should have let someone sneak up on me this way. I was slacking!

The boy raised his arms in a gesture of appeasement and immediately started to stammer. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to startle you! It's just that there were… There never were before… those were all guardians, the people who just left, weren't they?"

I studied him more attentively. He seemed to be around my age, though dressed fairly out of fashion for a guy not even in his twenties; he was wearing something that looked like a checkered slip-on over a light brown knitted sweater. His hair, a brownish blond matching his sweater, was a curly mob on top of his head.

"Yup, they were guardians," I told him. I would certainly not tell this stranger about the miraculous salvation that one of the people who had just left had caused.

"What were they doing here? There are never any Moroi or dhampirs in this part of town. Or even in this town, it's not a particularly Moroi-friendly climate. I have the misfortune of living here," he ended, smiling sheepishly. I don't really know why, but something in his open manner and this smile reminded me of Mason. Even though I had just met him, I already liked this guy.

"Bad luck," I said. "We were just using this house for a little while. There won't be any more guardian activity here to bother the neighborhood."

He looked disappointed. "I was actually hoping there might be. It's so very human here."

"What do you do?" I asked him, curiously. "Do you work among the humans?"

"Yes, I do," he said with a grimace. "Temporarily, though. I graduated from St. Thompson's Academy, and didn't have much success in finding a job yet. So I work as a clerk for the local health insurance company. It's not the most exciting work."

"Doesn't sound like it," I admitted. St. Thompson's Academy. Not exactly one for the bright and gifted. You were sure find not a single royal going to that academy.

"Well, so, I'm kind of excited to see some of my own kind again. I only see a couple of Moroi at our feeding station, but they're always the same and they're like fifty or so and don't mind living among humans…"

My, that was one talkative fellow. Well, at least I had some company while I killed the time Adrian needed to recover.

"Why don't you sit down for a while?" I offered, gesturing to the house's front steps. His smile broadened.

"Of course," he said, taking a seat. "What's your name?"

"Rose. Yours?"

"Tim. So, what were all those guardians doing here?"

"Guardian business. I can't tell," I said bluntly. I could have lied, but on the one hand, I couldn't think of a good excuse right now, and also, why would I need to lie? Guardians did lots of things they didn't want every passing Moroi to know about. This was no out of the ordinary occurrence.

"Oh," he said, a little disappointed. But then he immediately perked up again. "Are you a guardian already? You look young. When did you graduate?"

I laughed. "You sure are curious. I graduated last year, so yes, I'm a full-blown guardian."

"Cool. There were no dhampirs at my school, they didn't have the resources to fund guardian training, too."

"So you never could experience how bad-ass we are," I said.

"No, I have no idea how bad-ass you are. I would like to know, but then again, I think I would rather avoid any situations where guardian bad-assery would be needed."

I laughed again. "Good you're living in a climate that is likely to put off any Strigoi."

"Yeeea," he said. "That is probably why I am not all too eager to leave for some place with better career option. I'm a fraidy-cat."

"That's not what I said."

"Oh, no, that's what I say. I never was the most courageous of people. I still hope to discover other qualities."

He said it in a humorous tone, so he didn't sound plaintive.

"You know, Moroi learn how to kick major ass at Court nowadays. That be something for you?"

"Yes, I heard about that. But I doubt that I'm cut out to be a Moroi warrior. I'm more of the peaceful type."

"What element do you specialize in?"

"I, um..." He hesitated with something alike to embarrassment. "Air."

"I've seen some air users who could make a Strigoi scrambling to their mommy if they had any care left for her. It's a good element."

"Well, you see, I'm not a particularly good air user."

"Never mind. Other qualities, right?"

"Exactly!" Now he laughed, a hearty, short bark. He had a nice voice.

"Maybe you could be a singer?" I blurted. I was feeling comfortable enough to joke around with this guy. I was rewarded with an even longer laugh.

"I don't know. Might be worth a try. We could start a band together, if you want a change from all the bad-assness."

"I'll be sure to remember when my bad-ass days are over," I said, fully knowing that when my bad-ass days were over, I would probably have died in the line of duty. Never mind. It was fun to banter with someone who did not have a government to lead and a nation to worry about.

"So, how do you like Texas?" Tim asked conversationally.

"To be honest, I haven't seen much of it. But it kind of feels homey… my boyfriend is a big fan of cowboy clothes."

"Not that we wear much of that," he deadpanned. He didn't miss a beat at my boyfriend remark. Good. That suggested he wasn't here to flirt.

"No one but him wears much of that. It's an eccentricity."

"Oh, I would never have thought. For all I know, it could be the latest fashion thing at the Moroi Court."

That made me search for a new subject quickly. I'd better not admit to being from Court. This guy was nice, but I had no interest in raising his curiosity when he learned that his Queen's personal guardian had showed up in his suburb.

"I guess you shouldn't have any trouble living in a hot surrounding, being an air user. If it gets too hot, you just whip up a breeze…"

"Um… yeah…"

"I suppose it does get really hot down here. It's January now, and still nicely warm."

"Yes, definitely."

"Hey, you know what?" I had gotten an idea. I looked up to the room Adrian was sleeping in. Neil, the British guardian, should be in the room next to his, guarding him. I would like to know how much there was to the British stuck-upness…

"Are you up for a little prank?" I asked conspiratorially.

"Um…"

"There's another colleague of mine in that room up there. And the windows are reeeaally rattly…" I trailed off suggestively.

"Um… well… are you sure that wouldn't frighten him?" He had cottoned on to my plan, but to my disappointment, didn't seem thrilled by it.

"That's the point," I tried once again.

"Okay… I'll try."

It was childish, I know, but I couldn't resist the temptation. This guy had talked about my 'heroics' with Dimitri and called them 'legendary'. He needed to regard me as a little bit more of a person.

Tim looked up at the window I pointed to. I heard a faint rustle at the leaves around the ground, but the shutters didn't move one bit. He looked at me sheepishly, and then back at the shutters. Same result.

"I said I'm no good," he said, sadly.

"It's okay. I never should have asked you. I'm sorry." I was sorry for how dejected Tim looked now. But judging from this display of his powers, he really must have learned nothing in his years of St. Thompson Academy magic lessons.

Unless this guy wasn't really an air user… Didn't that sound familiar? A Moroi who sucked at all four of the elements… because his true element was the unknown fifth?

"Say, what did they say at school about your elemental magic?" I asked him right out. This was way too personal a question to ask an acquaintance of fifteen minutes, but it would be in his best interest if my hunch was correct.

He squirmed uncomfortably.

"Well, you see… I was kind of a … late starter when it comes to elemental magic. For a long time, I didn't specialize at all. That was really awkward. And then I came up with air, but I never excelled in it. Well… that's it."

"Did air come to you as your element or did you just decide it was air because you sucked least in it?"

He blinked. "That doesn't really sound friendly," he said tensely. I had overdone it a bit.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. But… have you ever heard of spirit?"

He huffed. "Heard of spirit? It's our Queen's element. Who hasn't heard of it?"

"And you never thought you could be a spirit user?"

"Me? No way. I just suck. Like you said." He didn't sound secure, though.

"Really, Tim, I don't want to offend you. But it could be, couldn't it? You never specialized in any of the other four elements, right?"

"Well… I really am not much of an air user, am I?"

"So…?"

"But thinking I could share the Queen's element, that's just preposterous. There are only three known spirit users. I cannot be one of them."

He hadn't heard of Avery, of course. We hadn't exactly tried to make the fate of the spirit user gone mad with spirit a public affair. One of the said three spirit users was sleeping in the house behind us this very moment. I was wondering whether it was worth making Tim wait here with me until Adrian woke up and could take a look at his aura.

"The element has been forgotten for so long, Tim. There must be more spirit users who don't know what they are. You should at least-"

"No," he said, standing up brusquely. "I'm not one of them. I think I'd better go."

His tone still wasn't unfriendly, just confused and taken aback. I gave it one more try.

"You could have it tested by the other spirit users. If you want… Sonya Tanner at Court would be only too happy to take a look at you and train you, if you're indeed a spirit user. You should give it a chance!"

"I'd only be disappointed," he said decisively. "I'd better go. Good night."

"Right. Good night."

I watched him take a few steps into the darkness. Then I couldn't resist calling after him: "But remember Sonya's name, if you change your mind! Sonya Tanner! She's really nice!"

Then he was gone, and I went back inside to relieve a very unpranked Neil.

* * *

*If you don't know about the catastrophe, read Still Going Strong, chapter 28: Survive! I'm not going to give anything away! ;-)

* * *

 **I know… I baited you with a cruelly short first chapter! I hope I'm in your good books again for posting a long one today!**

 **Hope you enjoyed!**


	3. Tango

Lissa was fluttering about in excitement at meeting another spirit user when I arrived back at Court. No wonder, since she had only ever met three others, one of whom had turned out to be a nutcase.

"I've met her!" Lissa exclaimed as soon as I had set my overnight-bag down. "She already agreed to work with Sonya. I would so like to do some research myself. But at least Sonya has some help now."

In the back of the room, Lissa's boyfriend Christian got up from one of the sofas. He greeted me briefly and came over to join us, but didn't share in Lissa's excitement.

"And Olive seems to be alright, I mean she'll have a hard time, but Dimitri and Sonya are there to help her. She's with Sonya now," Lissa continued. "Sonya said she could see a little of the magic around her, but she wouldn't have realized it if Adrian hadn't seen it first. It had faded to almost nothing. Sonya is still trying to find something else."

"Adrian did really great there. That was some awesome magic he pulled off," I said.

"It was. I hope he's okay now. Using spirit like that… "

She looked uncertainly over to Christian, who took her hand reassuringly but remained quiet. So, apparently, Christian hadn't entirely stopped being weird yet. He'd been suspiciously quiet and withdrawn since the events at Court only a few weeks ago, to the point that Lissa was starting to worry about him. Everyone who'd been in the battle had been shaken pretty roughly, but most had snapped out of it by now. Sure, Christian had hit it a little harder: his aunt had died in the attack, and died as a Strigoi, but he didn't even know that. Lissa had only told him that Tasha was dead, not that she had died as a Strigoi. The only evidence of this was the testimonial of one single guardian, who had stumbled over a Strigoi body in the confusion of battle and had recognized the famous criminal Natasha Ozera, before the sun turned her body to dust along with all the other fallen Strigoi. No one knew how she had gotten here, and no one knew who killed her, but since the convoy that was supposed to bring her to Court had indeed been intercepted, the assumption that Tasha was dead either way was a fairly safe one.

"Adrian will pull through. He always has, you know that."

"Well, it doesn't get easier. Anyway, we can't help him now. We have to focus on using the information he procured for us. What he did might help us a great deal. Sonya is as excited as I am about it, but she says not to get our hopes up too early. I guess she learned from her slow progress so far."

"Probably. Nevertheless, this is great news. Let's wait to hear what Sonya can learn with Olive's blood."

….

I had another surprise waiting for me the next morning: head guardian Hans Croft was summoning me to guardian headquarters.

"What the hell?" I exclaimed when I put the phone down. "I didn't do anything!"

"Roza, what makes you think it's because you got into some mischief that Hans wants to see you?" Dimitri asked with a humorous glint in his eyes.

"Because I usually have when he summons me."

"Then you deserve the suspense."

"You're one mean Russian. I haven't even forgiven you for sending me into the scrub of hell. Admit it, you know what he wants from me!"

"I don't," he replied with an innocent air. "Not entirely."

I gave him a scolding look and put on my jacket.

"See you later for training?"

"Maybe."

"What's with the cryptic answers?" I asked, slightly disgruntled.

"Wait and find out," was Dimitri's only answer.

So now I was standing in front of Hans' office with no idea what I was doing here. I didn't have to wait long before he poked his head out and called me.

"Hathaway. In with you."

I followed him inside, where he was already busy fiddling with some papers on his desk. He nodded towards a chair. I sat down.

"So, what have I done this time?" I asked, determined to get it over with.

"Done? Nothing. Not yet. But you will."

"Sure," I muttered. Hans finished his rummaging and produced a paper from the mess on his desk with a flourish.

"There we go. That's you."

'I' had a coffee stain and quite a few dog-ears, and didn't look as though I had been taken care of.

"Looks like I'm in a good shape."

"You are, of course, but we're going to whip you into an even better shape," Hans said, entirely ignoring the sarcasm.

"Does it involve actual whipping?" I asked warily.

Now Hans, for the first time, actually looked at me.

"Your post-academy training, Hathaway. That's what I'm talking about. You'll get some advanced training."

More training? Sounded like school. I was still suspicious. "In what?"

"Let's see. Every new guardian gets a different training schedule based on her or his position's requirement. Yours says crowd management is the most urgent point. Advanced weapons training. Not that you're not already handy with a sword… helicopter and plane piloting… undercover missions training… "

"Wait… did you say I'm going to learn how to fly a chopper?"

"You are, Hathaway. A queen's guardian has to learn pretty much everything there is, so you'll have continuing education for months, if not years. They keep inventing new stuff for guardians to learn. I had a new media class recently myself… But never mind. I'm sure you'll enjoy some of it. Some will be more boring than the worst you encountered in school, but I want you to pay attention to every single word said in every single moment of every single one of those classes, Hathaway. You're not a student anymore. You're learning what you need to protect our monarch."

"I think of that pretty much every single second of every single day I've been guarding her, Sir," I retorted. Hans gave me a hard glare.

"Don't sass me, Hathaway. I'm serious. No guardian's position is cut out for eternity, not even yours."

"I'm sorry. When will I start to learn piloting?"

Hans consulted his paper. "In October."

"Oh. And does anything come before October?"

"Lots. This is your schedule. It's lucky the Queen went easy on college classes this semester. You'll get a few things done."

Lissa had reduced her college workload significantly this term. She had given up on her ambition to finish her undergraduate studies in three years. You could only expect so much from a queen, after all. Now, we only needed to be in Lehigh for three days a week, leaving most of the week for us to be at Court.

Once out of Hans's office, I studied my schedule more thoroughly. It told me I'd have Crowd Management classes starting next week. The venue of the class – a lecture hall – made me expect the worst. Theory classes. Didn't I have enough of those at Lehigh? I went to all of Lissa's classes, after all!

"So, what do you start with?" Dimitri said, suddenly appearing in front of me.

"You did know about this."

"Of course, I had advanced training myself. I didn't know what classes they would put you in first, thought."

"Doesn't justify letting me go to Hans' fully expecting to have my guardian status revoked again!"

"You didn't expect that."

"One can never know. With Hans, everything is possible."

"I'd rather say, with you, everything is possible."

"Sounds better to me. Are we going to training now?"

"Yes."

"Let's go then."

"Um… I was hoping you would assist me with some special training that I have been assigned to do."

I raised an eyebrow. "Which would be?" Whatever could there be that Dimitri would be assigned to learn? Heck, the man already knew and could do everything. He was a guardian god.

"Ballroom dancing."

"Come again?"

"Yes. Dancing."

"You're kidding me."

"That's what I said when Hans gave me my training assignment."

"Really? You said _You're kidding me_ to Hans?"

"Well, not exactly."

"Ballroom dancing? What would you need that for?"

"Apparently, it seems likely that my duties will one day involve going to a dance on an undercover mission."

"I hope we'll be together on this mission then, because I will have undercover mission training to complement the knowledge," I told him.

"I personally judge the likelihood of this mission ever happening fairly low," he retorted.

"Definitely, as long as you're guarding Christian. He's so not the ballroom dancing type." In fact, he'd probably set the ballroom on fire if anyone would ever be stupid enough to make him dance a waltz.

"The classes remain to be taken. That is why I was wondering whether you might assist me in my training by being my partner in tango classes today?"

"Are you kidding me?" I almost screamed. "Of course I will!"

Dancing a tango with him? Oh yes, I would.

Not surprisingly, there was no actual ballroom involved in guardian ballroom dancing classes. The training took place in one of the guardian gyms that had a large open space.

A little more surprising was the bad luck we had in the choosing of this particular gym. Because it just so happened that it was the very one where Moroi weight lifting training was taking place at the same time.

"Is this another thing you didn't tell me about on purpose?" I hissed to Dimitri as we assembled on the training mat next to the sweating Moroi. Christian lifted an arm to greet us. Trying to put on an innocent smile, I waved back.

"Would you have come if you'd known?" He whispered back.

"And purposely get laughed at by Christian? Of course not!"

"See? You would have let me endure this on my own!"

There was nothing I could do, because at this moment, the instructor showed up. We crowded together so we could all see the moves she showed us. With us standing around her, the Moroi couldn't see what kind of training we were having yet. This changed, however, when the instructor turned on the music she had brought for us to practice.

"Damn it," I murmured into Dimitri's shoulder as we faced the inevitable. I could already see the training Moroi's heads turning at the sound of the orchestra from the ghetto blaster. We squared off against each other more like we were starting a fight than a dance and stiffly went through the steps we had been shown.

"You move like robots," the instructor's voice interrupted our strained dance. "You are a couple. We should see that in a dance."

Over Dimitri's shoulders, I could see the weight lifting areas only too well. No one was doing any lifting any more. I got a good look at Christian's face when a slightly too vigorous turn brought me right in front of his machine. He was trying very, very hard not to laugh in my face. Well, at least he was trying.

We made it through the lesson painfully slowly. Although gradually, the interest in our dancing ceased, I had never felt so uncomfortable in my life. And there I had thought dancing with Dimitri was something enjoyable.

The Moroi had left by the time we were finally done. Both Dimitri and I gave a sigh of relief when we exited the gym into freedom again.

"Comrade – I wish you good luck for the remainder of these dance lessons. They will take place without me."

"I cannot believe you're abandoning me so heartlessly."

"I'm sorry. I have to see to my own survival."

"You have to do what your conscience tells you, Rose."

"Exactly. It tells me I now have to eat large portions of sugary stuff to make up for my loss of self-esteem. Will you join me in my endeavors to maintain my sugar high?"

"Much as I'd like to watch you eating doughnuts by the bucket loads, I need to leave. I'm on patrol duty in fifteen minutes."

"Well, then I shall brave this battle alone. See you tonight. Let's hope we won't run into _him_."

As luck would have it, I immediately ran into _him_. _He_ was sitting on a couch with Lissa in her cozy little conference room, looking up as if he was innocence himself.

"Hey Rose," Lissa greeted me. "You can sit down for a minute, I need to finish reading these papers before we leave for the meeting."

While I did as she said, I fiercely held Christian's gaze, which was still as sweet as a puppy's. I decided to forestall him and breach the matter myself.

"What, no snarky comment?"

"I can't, Rose."

"No comment about what?" Lissa asked absent-mindedly, her nose already buried into her papers.

"Oh, come on Mr. Sarcasm. Surely you won't let this opportunity pass you by."

"No, really, I can't, Rose. It would be too cruel." Still, those icy blue eyes bore into me with the innocence of the holy Mary herself. "I can't bring myself to do it."

"What's wrong with you? Are you growing a heart?"

"Maybe. If you'd at least have been good… Then maybe I could find it in me to give you the tiniest of taunts. But having seen you… I just can't."

"What are you saying? That we weren't good? Christian, there is only one thing Dimitri and I can't do, and that is to be in the same room with you without wanting to gag you. We are not bad dancers."

"Um… You looked like robots. You seriously sucked at dancing." Christian looked like he had second thoughts about the wisdom of telling me this to my face, but eventually seemed to decide to brave my anger.

"We do not suck at dancing. No way. And why does everybody compare us to robots? There is no way that you could do even half the dancing that we are doing. We are governmentally certified at kicking ass. And that extends to all sorts of sports, dancing included," I ranted.

"Don't work him up, Rose, or he's going to suggest a competition between you guys and us," Lissa piped in, only half-conscious of the gravity of our discussion.

When Christian's eyes met mine, it was clearly evident that both of us wished that Lissa had been just a little more absorbed into her work just this one time. Now that she'd said this, there was no way out; we could neither of us be the first to back out of her unknowing suggestion. There was no further talk needed. Our hand met in a brief, decided handshake.

"It is on," I said menacingly.

Lissa looked up again confusedly. "What is on? What's up with you guys?"

"Too late, Lissa," Christian told her in a brave show of calmness. "There's no turning back. A tango competition it is."

….

"What have you done, Rose?" Dimitri's look betrayed at once that he grasped the full extent of a dancing competition between me and him and Lissa and Christian. "Look at them! Lissa moves like she's wearing Hermes' wings even when she only walks to the bathroom and Christian is a royal after all. They probably learned how to dance in Sunday school when they were five years old. We stand no chance."

There was so much wrong with this speech. "Are you saying I'm not graceful? And Christian is? What? And what's Hermes?"

"Oh, my Roza… we're doomed."


	4. The New Guy

Thankfully, we wouldn't meet our doom until next week, when the next dancing class would be held. Until then, it was business as usual. I attended a Council meeting with Lissa, barely listening as they went on and on about feeder accommodations. I was amazed as always that there was still so much talking to be done; new proposals didn't reach Lissa until after they had been debated and revised several times by other committees.

Then, a more interesting meeting awaited us: Sonya wanted to tell Lissa about what she had found out about Olive's blood.

In a horrendous breach of etiquette for a queen, we met in Sonya's living room. It was where she kept all her utensils and papers, and Lissa wasn't a big fan of having people move their asses to come to her when it was much easier she come to them.

"The cellular structure is the same as you would expect," Sonya explained, bent over a tiny sample on a little glass plate. "I sent a sample to a Moroi lab to analyze, but I'm afraid to waste the blood on what has been fruitless before. This is probably the most valuable substance in the whole world right now."

I smiled at Sonya's priorities there. Even though preventing someone from turning Strigoi was as high on my list as it was on hers, not everyone would rate the value of Olive's blood that high.

"There is still some spirit left. It seems to envelop every single blood cell. Curiously, the spirit doesn't seem to _seep out_ of the blood, but rather seep into it. If it was seeping out, I should be able to see tendrils of spirit leaving the vial. But I don't. Of course, they might be just too slight for me so see, but the assumption seems likely that the blood cells are imbibing the spirit. That would make sense, because something has to stay in order for the spirit to leave a lasting effect."

Lissa sighed regretfully. "I wish I could see it."

Ever since she had lashed out wildly on one of her spirit bouts after healing people like a maniac, she had resolved that her duty as a queen was to keep her sanity rather than healing the occasional wound. It was hard on her, but she kept to her resolve. And I cannot begin to tell how much worry that was taking from my shoulders. Even though times had been hard, she had not had a single mentally unstable second since she took her medication.

"Well, as I said, there is not actually much to see," Sonya said with a frown. "It's more of an educated guess than physical evidence. But it's the most plausible way spirit could change something."

"What else are you planning to do with the blood sample?" I asked her.

Sonya looked up from her various notes. "Well… it might sound odd. I was thinking about what an effect the blood might have when it was administered to another Moroi or dhampir. Eventually, we mean to find out a way to make others immune without having to be turned Strigoi and back. But I still can't think of a way to do this. And with what little material we have, the idea must be thought through before I attempt anything."

"Experiment on another Moroi or dhampir?" Lissa asked doubtfully. "Are you sure that is safe?"

"No, I'm not. I can't be. But there is no other way to make progress," Sonya replied.

"I guess you're right," Lissa conceded uncertainly.

Sonya drew back from her dinner table-turned-research lab.

"There's something else that might interest you," she said. "There might be a new spirit user."

"Tim?" I blurted.

Sonya raised her eyebrows. "You know him?"

"I met him in Dallas. Gave him your name so he could contact you. He was reluctant to admit he might be a spirit user."

"He's arriving tomorrow."

"That's great! He's really nice. I hope he really is a spirit user. As an air user, he sucked big time."

"Another one," Lissa said with a glint in her eyes. "And I asked all academies to inform me when they had a student with no apparent specialization. Maybe there will be more soon."

When we arrived at Sonya's apartment the next day, Lissa asked all her guardians but me to stay outside. We wanted to meet Tim at Sonya's so as not to frighten him with the palace – as well go the whole way and not frighten him with masses of guardians either.

We knocked and waited for Sonya to open. She appeared at the door with a wide smile that immediately told me that Tim had been a success.

"Meet the newest member of the spirit team," she said brightly as she led us in.

Tim was seated on Sonya's living room sofa. He got up when he saw us, nervously wiping his hands on his pants. There was the friendly smile on his face, but I could tell he wasn't feeling too comfortable with the situation. I guess suddenly having one's element changed and go from being an abysmally bad air user to a world-wide sensational spirit user was something to take in for a guy.

"This is great!" Lissa squealed. "It's so good you came! There are so few spirit users, it's so exciting to meet a new one!"

"Oh, I'm, um…" He stumbled awkwardly. I guess he meant to say something to the point of, _don't get your hopes up, I'll probably suck as a spirit user, too_ , seeing as the guy didn't seem to be blessed with a particularly high self-esteem, when he saw me. His eyes widened slightly. I hadn't told him he would see me at Court, after all. "Hi, Rose."

"Hey buddy. How's it going?"

"Well, things have taken a surprising turn for the unusual. Which, if I may say so, is unusual for an ordinary being like me."

"Don't worry, you'll be fine. Didn't expect to see me here, did you?"

"No, indeed, I didn't. Are you her guardian?"

Did I imagine things or did he blush slightly when he sent a timid smile to Lissa? Well, that was hardly a new thing. Lissa was a stunner in the eyes of men. She didn't get so many flirty stares since she was queen, you know, respect and everything, but I guess Tim had been living under the figurative rock since she was elected and had never seen her face. Moroi society isn't big on TV transmission of important events. Or any other events.

"I'm Lissa", she said, extending her hand. "Also a spirit user." One that couldn't access her powers, a fact that she liked to omit sometimes.

Tim took her hand with a reverence that promised nothing good. Lissa had a boyfriend she adored, after all. But there was this shyness mixed into his behavior that made him seem incredibly cute right now. Teddy-bear cute.

"Tim Meares. It's really nice to meet you."

"Same here. So, Sonya diagnosed you're indeed a spirit user?"

He cast Sonya an anxious glance. "So she said. I can't really believe it."

"Believe her. Haven't you ever done things with your magic that other elemental users can't?"

He shrugged apologetically. "Not really."

"Maybe you haven't realized you did it," Lissa tried to comfort him. "Most of us did things unheard of, and we had no idea why we were able to do it."

"I'm sorry to say it, but I have led a pretty boring life so far. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened to me."

"That is going to change," I told him brightly. "Already has." He'd met the queen and didn't realize it, he he.

After our introductions, Sonya and Lissa tried to gauge Tim's spirit abilities. They asked him whether he had ever been particularly successful at compulsion (to which he replied that he had never tried, seeing as it was forbidden to do so), healing, dream walking, moving objects, or any other stuff they thought spirit users might be able to do. Then they tried to make him see auras, heal plants and move a pen on the table. Tim showed no sign of spirit at all, except from that golden glow in his aura that only Sonya could see.

Sonya and Lissa both stayed as upbeat as they could throughout Tim's attempts. In the end, they both enthusiastically told him to practice, and promised him that he would show a talent eventually. Then, they started the downsides talk.

Spirit was a fickle element. It could make a person work wonders, but after this, it would make the person ill. It could cause mental problems that were different for every spirit user we had encountered yet, but it inevitably showed.

Tim received this news impassively. Maybe he was still too doubtful that he really could use spirit to worry about the side-effects of using it. In any case, the craziness news didn't weigh him down when we left Sonya's together.

Then we walked out into a dhampir apartment complex corridor lined with a phalanx of guardians.

Tim eyed them warily. He seemed to duck a little as we passed through them; only the two closest to the staircase walked ahead of us.

"That's a lot of guardians," he stated quietly.

"Um, yes, I guess," Lissa said. She must only realize now that Tim had no idea who she was.

"Are they all yours?" Tim asked cautiously, the inkling that he was missing something important clearly evident in his voice.

"Well, yeah."

"Um… are you important? What exactly do you do, except be a super spirit user?"

"Ah, well, I'm… I'm kind of the queen."

Tim stopped in his tracks, nearly causing a guardian to run into him. His mouth was wide open. He looked positively aghast.

Lissa used his speechlessness. "Oh, don't get any crazy ideas of kneeling or anything. It was nice to meet you casually. It's impossible to get to know people without them behaving all weirdly, you know?"

"I'm… I had no idea…"

"I'm glad you didn't. It's much nicer this way."

"Um…"

"Get over it, Tim," I told him, clapping his shoulder to make him breathe again. "She's also just a normal girl like you and me, in her free time."

"A normal girl like you would be entirely sufficient, Rose," Lissa corrected.

"Are you okay?" I asked Tim, because I still wasn't sure he was breathing.

"I'm, um… I'm sorry."

"That's okay," I said. "Come on, let's get some lunch. I'm starving."

"Would you like to have lunch with us, Tim?" Lissa asked politely.

"Of course he'll come," I interjected before he could refuse. "You don't know your way around Court yet, Tim, we'll show you."

He followed us dazedly, probably more because he didn't know what else to do. He'd get more comfortable with the queen's presence eventually. Lissa wasn't the sort of people who were out to inspire awe in her admirers. People tended to get comfortable with her highness really fast.

We quickly agreed to have lunch in one of our favorite Court diners. Entering the palace was probably a step too far for Tim. He needed to get used to a royal environment slowly.

We met Christian halfway to our destination.

"Hey. Made new friends?"

"Try not to scare him away, Christian," I warned him. "This is a promising new spirit user."

"I'll be nice," he said. "I'm Christian."

When after their introduction, Christian put an arm around Lissa and gave her a quick kiss, Tim eyed them suspiciously. "Are you the king, then?" he asked warily.

Christian made a disgusted face. "No. No way. Don't ever say that. Or even imply that. Ever."

"Hey, don't make being a monarch sound so awful," Lissa scolded him playfully. "I happen to be one, remember?"

"Yup, and you're a wonderful queen, Liss, but I think we all agree that it's a good thing that doesn't extend to me."

"Oh, yes, we are," I said, while Lissa pouted.

"You'd be sort of an honorary king if we'd marry," she suggested.

"Then we can't marry as long as you're queen," Christian retorted, deadpan.

We continued discussing whether marrying the ruling queen would make Christian some kind of king – and of course his mock refusal to marry Lissa – the whole way to the diner and halfway through lunch. Tim didn't contribute much, but our very normal teenage banter – well, except for the topic – seemed to make him more at ease with Lissa's presence.

He still gave Lissa a few longing glances, but I was relieved to see that he didn't try to compete with Christian for her affections or anything. He got my Rose-approved 'reasonable guy' stamp. It was probably the queen thing as well as the relationship status that discouraged him. In any case, Lissa, Christian and I dropped him off at Moroi guest housing with a favorable impression.

"He's really nice," Lissa said. "I do hope he'll improve a little in the spirit department, though. It would be good if he could help Sonya with her studies."

"Nina agreed to help her," I remarked.

"The more, the better!"

Christian huffed. "Do you really want all the world to know what kind of revelations Sonya's working on? I don't know, but you're usually not that open-hearted when it comes to potentially world-changing research."

"Oh, don't be that way, Christian. He could really help. Why not trust him?"

Christian just shrugged and dropped the matter. The reduced drive to argue came with his lingering weirdness.

"Sonya cannot make much time for him right now anyway," Lissa said. "She has to work on the blood while the magic still holds."

"Let's see how he's dealing in a few days," I said. "We need to be off soon."

As always we needed to depart for Lehigh once again. We had long since gotten used to the travelling we were doing, splitting the week between Court and college. At least we were both seeing much more of our boyfriends now that Lissa had reduced her college workload.

I went to Dimitri and my apartment then. The day's work was far from over: we had some tango steps to master!

….

Four days later, we were back at Court and a day to go until our unofficial dance competition. I tried to make Dimitri do some morning training right after we got up, but he flat-out refused on the grounds that I was taking this dance thing 'a little too serious'. However could you take it too serious to win against a bet with one of you best friends?

"At lunch break, then?" I asked, in between choosing today's shirt and sweater.

Dimitri just looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and then disappeared, eyebrow and all, in a brown knitted sweater that reminded me of what Tim wore when I first met him but looked like something out of a fashion magazine on Dimitri.

"Okay, tonight, then. We are absolutely not going in there tomorrow without a little last minute practice."

"Tonight it is, then," he finally said. "Don't overexert yourself until the big day, though."

Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow, something that, unfortunately, looked a lot less impressive with me than with him. "Got it comrade. I knew you're taking this seriously after all."

He smiled, a wonderful, light-up-the-day smile. "Of course I do, if it matters to you."

"No, no, no," I exclaimed. "You need to recognize the importance of this! It's who will laugh at whom for the next couple months! Don't pretend that you're not personally invested!"

"The only people who will laugh are Christian and you, at each other."

"We will see, comrade. Either way, we will see."

We left our apartment together and walked arm in arm until he had to turn for guardian headquarters. He was still working Court duties because his charge, Christian, hardly needed him in an environment as safe as Court. Well, we had recently had to learn that even Court wasn't impenetrable, but the guardians had managed to reestablish security marvelously speedy. It was not like Christian needed a safe environment in order to not need a guardian; he was actually quite capable of dealing with most threats on his own. Sometimes, I think they just left Dimitri paired up with him because they made a team that it would be a shame to break apart. At other times, I'm pretty certain they do it because Christian was sure to find situations that were over his head even with his skills. Either way, I was thankful for the arrangement. If Dimitri got another charge, there was no telling in what part of the world he might end up. My own mom hadn't originally signed up to live in Europe.

Christian was alone in the apartment when I came in. He seemed to just vacantly stare into space, even though he had a stack of papers on front of him. I watched him for a few seconds before gently knocking on the doorframe to make myself known.

"Hey, Christian!"

"Hey Rose", he said, looking up. "Lissa went to see Marie. She didn't want to wake you, so she didn't call you."

"Why aren't you at morning training?" The Moroi fighting team went to gym insanely early in the morning. They kept a regimen that made them rise earlier than they had to when still at school.

"Already finished. I went early because Lissa was supposed to be free now."

"And she chose Court work over you? How heartless. That must be hard on you."

"Court work?" Christian snorted. "It sounded more like Marie had this new dress catalog that Lissa just had to see."

"Oops. Even harder. Don't worry, she still loves you." I plopped down on the sofa next to him and drew my knees under my body to get comfortable. "What are you doing?" I nodded to some papers that he held in his lap and otherwise ignored.

"Hmp. I'm drawing up a proposal about how you could teach defensive magic at the academies. Which feels pretty useless as long as they don't actually allow it to be taught."

"So instead, you decided to burn a whole into the air with your eyes?"

That just earned me a scornful look.

"Seriously, Christian. Are you okay?"

Now his look turned impatient. "Please don't give me a feelings talk, Rose."

"Had enough of those from Lissa?"

"No, she knows better than that."

He looked at his papers for the first time, pretending to read them, and I continued to sit next to him because I kind of didn't want to leave him alone. By and by, we both actually focused on the papers.

"Hadn't you better put this physics stuff before the 'Moving solid objects' classes for air users?" I asked. "If they know the physics, they can gauge their powers better."

Christian frowned. "Yes, but they all said that they had to try it for themselves before they could actually connect the theory with the practice. They said that because the strengths of their respective air streams are all different, the physics don't help them until they try. This is why I tried to make them have practice and theory classes alternately."

Right.

"Are you planning physical combat training also or will they just be taking part in guardian classes?" I asked.

"We're not there yet. And we would suggest that combat training remain voluntary anyways. It's not the focus. Also, Moroi should have separate classes from dhampirs, not only because the dhampirs would kick them into frustration, but also because we're currently figuring out ways and tactics that help a Moroi keep the distance we need to properly work magic. So, there would be different things to teach eventually."

When he showed me a rough sketch for the physical training, we got carried away, and had five months of training planned out before Dimitri interrupted our flow.

"There I thought you two were all wrapped up in competing against each other," he said, standing in the doorway with the tiniest of knowing grins. "Leave you alone for a few hours and I find you cuddled up and plotting world domination."

Christian and I immediately started protesting.

"She just came and butted in, it was really annoying," he claimed loudly.

"The things he wants to put these students through, I just had to intervene," I claimed equally as loudly.

Dimitri just laughed softly. "I just met Lissa. She wants to have lunch together with Tim at the diner and asked us all to come."

We got up and stacked the papers on the table.

"Don't think that means anything for tomorrow, Ozera," I whispered to him, menacingly, under my breath when we followed Dimitri outside. "Wouldn't dream of it, Hathaway," he whispered back.

Lissa and Tim were already at the diner when we arrived, deep in conversation about spirit.

"I don't understand this darkness thing," Tim was saying. "You seem fine. I mean, you're the queen. You couldn't rule with madness hanging around you all the time. You'd make terrible decisions. But you don't. I heard everywhere that you're a really good queen."

Seems like we arrived just in time to back Lissa up for the difficult bit. We seated ourselves at their table while Lissa didn't seem to know whether she should react to the compliment or the question in Tim's statement.

"Well, there are… ways to prevent the madness," she finally said.

"But they are quite extreme," I helped out. Tim looked from her to me and back again.

Lissa took a deep breath. "I can't access my magic," she said. "The madness, for me, predominantly manifested in depression. I take anti-depressants, and with the medication, there's no more madness, but there's no more magic either. We haven't figured out a way to have both magic and sanity yet."

If Tim was shocked at this, he hid it well. "So you're saying, you can't use spirit right now? You've given it up?"

"Well… temporarily, yes, I have. As you said. I can't rule with madness hanging around me all the time."

"Are you done with spirit talk now?" Christian broke the ensuing silence. "Can we move on to a more cheerful subject?"

"Are you going to watch us wipe Christian off the dance floor tomorrow?" I asked Tim maliciously. "It's the big day."

"Um… what day?" Tim asked confusedly.

"Never mind," Lissa said with a scolding look to me. She was the only one who was less than excited about our bet. Counting Dimitri as fully invested, of course. "How do you like Court? Are you going to stay for a while?"

"Actually, yes," Tim announced. "Not recognizing our queen when I stood right before her made me realized I am quite out of the loop when it Moroi society is concerned. I would like to stay here for a while, get work, learn about spirit, and catch up with the times again."

"That's great news!" Lissa beamed. "Sonya will be happy to know you're staying, too."

"That makes two new spirit users. Nina is staying as well. Until she and Olive know what to do with their lives again," I said.

"Yes, I got to know her," Tim said. "I can tell you, if you'd told me everything that had gone down in that house in Dallas right there… I would probably have turned tail and ran the minute I could. It's easier to take it all in gradually."

"Good thing Rose is so secretive, then," Christian said with a slightly sourly tinge. Oh dear, not the jealousy thing again. Christian and Lissa really had an issue with jealously. Especially when male spirit users were involved. I guess they breached the one matter where Christian just couldn't follow.

"Oh, and I heard what you two did at the battle," Tim said, turning to Christian and Dimitri. "I don't think I can really express my admiration at your courage. I'm just floored."

He really seemed floored, because he didn't appear to notice the silence he'd caused with the two.

"And then there's this whole craziness with this Ozera lady who killed the queen and then came back to Court as a Strigoi and died. She's not related closely to you, Christian, is she?"

Oh hell.

It was like a bombed had dropped right in the middle of our diner table. Lissa, Dimitri and me just froze. Christian seemed to freeze, too, because in my view, the alternative reaction to learning that your only living relative who brought you up and whom you used to love had turned into the monster you despise from the bottom of your heart was to take off screaming. Lissa looked as if her heart had stopped, and even Tim perceived that something was wrong. His eyes swiveled around everyone at the table.

Christian did not run off screaming, and he not freeze up, either. Instead, he fixed Tim with a hard glare. When he spoke, his voice was laced with an undertone very close to threatening.

"How do you know?"

"Um…" Tim swallowed. "I talked to some guys I met in a bar. I was just there to socialize, you know, get to know people… I don't usually go to bars on my own…"

"Christian" Lissa's voice was fearful. "I'm… I'm so sorry… I didn't want to lie to you-" She was sitting in the booth, crammed in by Tim and Dimitri, unable to touch Christian or make him leave with her.

Christian had that grim, vacant look again that I had seen on him earlier. I felt like I should do something, or say something, but I had no idea what could help. From the panic on Lissa's face, it was the same for her.

"I still don't believe what she said," Dimitri said, suddenly. Looking over to him, I realized that he didn't seem fazed by the news of Tasha's turning Strigoi leaking to Christian. I had no idea what he meant by what he said.

"And by no means do I believe that it has any effects on you," Dimitri continued talking in riddles. "You will never turn Strigoi. Ever."

Of course he wouldn't! Did he think that because Tasha had turned…

"Well, I think that the time for me to panic has definitely arrived," Christian replied, in a weirdly calm voice.

"What she said…?" Lissa whispered in horror.

It was then that it hit me. They had questioned the guardians who had been in the battle if they knew who had killed Tasha. No one had killed her, no one knew about it. The only ones they had not questioned were Christian and Dimitri, because they probably assumed that it would be crazy for Christian to be involved in his aunt's killing and not say anything.

In hindsight, it would probably have been crazier if he had said something.

"No," Lissa whispered. I saw in her eyes her longing to find the right thing to say or do for Christian, but she was still locked into her booth and was only just grasping what had happened.

My eyes met Dimitri's. "You killed her? You killed Tasha?"

That would mean that after witnessing his parents' deaths, which had definitely left a scar, Christian would have had to see his aunt die as a Strigoi as well. But what I saw in Dimitri's eyes told me that it was even worse.

"No," Christian said. "I killed her."

* * *

 **Yeah, I know, the Tasha thing is getting old. It was just an open end from the last story that I had to wrap up. There will be more new things from now on!**


	5. Bring It On

Tim was devastated by what he had unwillingly brought on. Unfortunately, he had no one to apologize to: Christian had taken off after his revelation, and Lissa had followed him even though after she had freed herself from her freeze and her corner position, he was nowhere to be seen.

"I'm so sorry," Tim said over and over again.

Dimitri sighed. "You couldn't know. And you didn't do anything."

"Yes," I said, still stunned. "Christian knew all along. Christian did it."

"He had to," Dimitri said calmly. "Some Strigoi had me tied down. He had to kill her or she would have killed him."

"Does he resent Lissa for wanting to keep this from him?"

"No. He keep it from her too."

"I can see why."

Silence enveloped up, in which Dimitri and I stared at the table, Tim stared into thin air in horror, and the waiting personnel stared at all of us, wondering what had made the queen take off in a cloud of dust from their diner. I think they advertised with it being Lissa's favorite and were worried her preferences might change.

I went back to Lissa and Christian's apartment later for duty, but they had shut themselves into their bedroom and it felt intrusive to knock. I didn't see or hear anything of them until the next morning, when Lissa called me on the phone as I was about to get ready.

"Liss. How… are things?"

She sighed. "Not easy. Listen, Rose. I know you had this crazy dance thing on today-"

"Forget about it. It was never important."

"It's not because of that."

"Then what?"

"I completely forgot to tell you yesterday. Sonya contacted me with an idea. She wants Sydney's help in creating a tattoo similar to the Alchemist one by using ink containing Olive's blood. I talked to Adrian – he and Sydney are flying in to help."

"That's great!" All thoughts about dance competitions were already out of my mind. Anti-Strigoi tattoo? Trumped dancing. "What will they arrive?"

"Um… in about half an hour."

"Oh. That is fast."

"I'm sorry, I meant to tell you sooner. Can you and Dimitri come over as quickly as possible?"

"Ten minutes."

"Good. And… don't mention… you know?"

"Sure. See you soon."

I filled Dimitri in, and we made good on my promise to be at the palace in ten minutes' time. Lissa, Christian, Sonya and the Sinclair sisters were already assembled in her informal meeting room, a cozy one with sofas all over the place.

It was nice seeing Adrian again – yes, even though I ditched him, I still cared for the guy – and that alone made up for the early start of the day. Greetings was pretty much the only thing that happened there and then, because all Sydney could do was to draw up a list of ingredients that she needed to create a tattoo.

After dropping Sydney and Adrian off at guest housing, I had to go to one of the Court's buildings that I had never visited before: a small lecture facility. It was the day of my first crowd management training.

The lecture hall was about half full by the time I arrived, which wasn't saying much. The hall hadn't been built with a significant increase of interest in education at Court in mind. I found Carl, a fellow queen's guardian, on the benches and went to sit down next to him.

"Hey Rose. How was the special mission?" Carl didn't know about Nina and Olive – we weren't sure yet whether Strigoi restorations should become public or not. The public hadn't reacted well to Dimitri's restoration.

"It went really well. Are you as excited about crowd management lectures as I am?" I meant that ironically, of course.

"Well, it's actually something that could be really useful to us. In those attacks on the queen, we might have been able to get to the perpetrators or get them faster if we had been able to make the spectators react faster."

"That's true," I admitted, though still not thrilled about the idea of more lectures. "Speaking of which, you're in contact with the investigations on the case. Did they find out their motives yet?"

We still had three Moroi water users in custody, which were being questioned for the reasons they attacked Lissa with water magic some time ago. There had been so many things on my plate that I'd almost forgotten about them. Carl had kept an eye on the proceedings for Lissa, so he was up to date.

"Well, it's a funny thing," Carl said. "They're still adamant in claiming that they haven't got a clue why they did it."

"They claim they don't know why they travelled to Court to hide out on a square and make an attempt on the queen's life? What do they say, that they just stumbled over that fountain and made the snap decision to try what they could do with it, and Lissa just happened to come along? Not likely."

"It sounds like the worst lie in the history of lies, I know. But I watched an interrogation session with each one of them. I'm telling you, the look they get when asked why they did it…" Carl frowned. "They get really desperate. The kind of desperate you get when your life is getting unhinged. It's crazy, but I really don't know what else to do but believe them. They just look so credible."

"They should put you into people skills classes," I told him testily. "They tried to kill my best friend. I'm not fooled by good acting."

Carl looked like he might say something, but the lecture started and we were trapped in two hours of the theory of a crowd's mind.

A familiar sight greeted me when I entered Lissa and Christian's apartment: Christian sitting on the sofa buried in papers, not seeming to see much of them. I knew Lissa was in an important meeting, one that she couldn't postpone or skip even though she would have liked nothing better than to be with Christian now. His face was carefully composed but still grim and stony.

"Don't be frightened," I said, coming in. "I'm going to hug you."

That did startle him, of course, but he didn't resist. I even felt him return the hug after a few seconds.

"I put a stake through Dimitri's heart when he was Strigoi," I told him when we broke apart. "Well, at least I thought so for a few weeks. You did the right thing."

He looked at me with something like surprise and reluctance. "Yeah, that's pretty much obvious."

"Then what's bothering you?"

I shouldn't have expected him to talk, really; it wasn't like Christian to chat away about his little aches and pains. But maybe just being frank and asking him was what opened him up.

"She said she did it voluntarily."

"Uh."

"Seems to run in my family after all."

"That's crap," I retorted flatly. He eyed me irritably. Okay, maybe that warranted more of an explanation; I didn't mean to say that I put it past Tasha to do it. I had remembered what Christian had said in the diner: _The time for me to panic has arrived._ Christian was afraid that there was some sort of hereditary liability running in his family that would one day make him turn Strigoi even though it was everything he opposed now.

"It's crap, Christian. You're your own person. You won't turn Strigoi just because other people do it, be they you're relatives or not."

"That's what Tasha used to say."

"Yes, but for one, you can't be sure she didn't only say that to taunt you, and also, she did other things you would never do."

"I can't be sure she didn't tell the truth, either."

"Sonya turned Strigoi, and she's one of the most moral people I know. I'm sorry to break this to you, Christian, but the world isn't all black and white."

"Thanks for the philosophy lesson."

"You're welcome."

"How's the tango coming along?"

"That was such a crude change of topic."

"Subtlety never was my forte."

Well, I guess touchy-feely time was over. "It's coming along splendidly, thank you very much."

"Are we still on next week?"

I grinned. "We are so on."

….

The huge breakfast buffet took up all the available tables in Lissa's little conference room and was very much to my taste. She must have asked the staff to stock up on doughnuts especially.

Sydney and Adrian arrived together from guest housing. I don't know what they'd been doing during the day, since they had already slept through the night. It would have to be expected that Sydney was a little tense amongst a society of evil bloodsucking monsters, and indeed, she looked a little shaken. Then I found out part of the reason for this, and Adrian's lack of discretion again amazed me to no end: There he really went and told Sydney about dabbling. No wonder she was boggled. She had just learned that Moroi did exactly what she and the Alchemist were afraid they were doing.

She concentrated on her work perfectly, of course. To be honest, things became a little boring then; Sydney worked away at her improvised lab, and the rest of us could do little more than watch and keep eating. And then, when she was done, she announced that we had to wait for a couple of hours. In other words, keep doing what we'd been doing for a few hours already. Sydney withdrew to her room, and the rest of us waited around, killing time.

Sonya was on tenterhooks the whole time. She was so excited at being this close to a potential vaccine against turning Strigoi. After a while, Mikhail passed by during his break from work, and managed to calm her a little. The actual act of giving the tattoo to Neil was suspenseful, but we couldn't expect anything to happen immediately. Neil would have to be bitten by a Strigoi in order to test the hypothesis that he now could not be turned.

I went to bed with Dimitri still talking about the dream of vaccinating people against turning Strigoi, and gossiping about Sydney and Adrian. Our theory that there was something between the two had taken a little setback at seeing them today. There had definitely been a rift between them.

With the intention of observing them closely, I went to the palace for another joint breakfast to see them off before they would catch their plane back to Palm Springs. Upon entering Lissa's rooms, I found them empty, except for Lissa leaning back in a chair tiredly.

"Where is everyone?" I asked.

Lissa raised her head briefly, then let it bump back down against the headrest again. "If by everyone you mean Adrian and Sydney, they're in a hotel about thirty miles away."

"Oh. Did we finally manage to creep Sydney out so much she fled Court?"

"No, it's a much longer story, and it kept me awake all day."

"Do tell," I said, settling down on the sofa beside her.

"Sydney was molested by a few douchebags who wanted to make her let them drink her blood. I had to get her away from Court immediately to salvage what I could from Alchemist-Moroi relations. There's a snowstorm out there, so they crashed their car – they're alright – and now they took refuge in a hotel close by. They didn't even manage to get far."

I was almost out of my sofa again. "First of all, what idiots! Idiots! Tried to make an Alchemist agree to a feeding? Do they realize that with anyone but Sydney, they could have damaged Moroi-human relations permanently?"

"One-time friends of Adrian's. And don't even get the idea of taking revenge on them. I'm having a hard enough time keeping Christian away from them."

"No need to worry!" Christian was strolling in, looking as tired as Lissa but wearing a smug smile.

Lissa groaned. "What did you do?"

"I told you, no need to worry. I didn't do anything."

"Then you wouldn't be smirking like this."

"I just payed those assholes a little visit in jail. Was all it took."

"Along with a few bluffs about coming after them when they were free, hu?" I guessed, trying to convey my appreciation by looks only so that Lissa wouldn't have a go at me, too.

Christian's smile turned a little malicious. "As I said, nothing done. Don't know what kept them awake all night…"

"Please, can you not make any more enemies?" Lissa said in an exasperated tone.

"Hey, I don't have so many!" Christian replied defensively. "True, Rose counts as ten, but I can manage the rest."

"Always knew I'm too much for you to handle, fireworks!" I chanted.

"Oh, you are too much for anyone to handle, Rosie dearest. You'd need your own containment facility."

"Okay, guys, stop the bickering. I've still got a lot of work to do that piled up from the last days, and this week's Court days are almost over. Can I please have a little more love and harmony in here?"

"Love and harmony?" I repeated after exchanging a malicious glance with Christian. "Can do, baby." Of course, Lissa would not have said this if she'd known what she'd make Christian and me do: we lunged at her in a full blown love-and-harmony cuddle attack.

…

The tension was up high. The competitors were lining the dance floor, rolling their shoulders in preparation and giving each other intimidating stares. The silence was breaking the nerves of everyone involved.

Which was only Dimitri, Lissa, Christian and me, of course. Everyone else had no idea about the epic battle that was taking place in the midst of them. The dhampirs were chatting with the various partners they had brought – wives, girlfriends, good friends or just female guardians who also had to take the class.

"Don't lose your confidence," I continued my pep talk for Dimitri. "We can beat them. We will beat them. We are simply better than them. Much better. So much better."

"Do you want to prepare me or make me nervous, Rose? I honestly can't tell," Dimitri said.

"Just focus. Concentrate. We can do it."

"Sure," he said resignedly.

And then, the music started. The time had come.

I saw Christian grinning at me over Lissa's shoulder from the other side of the improvised dance floor. I would wipe that smirk off his face.

Since we had missed the last lesson, this was only the second time the instructor saw our performance. Christian and Lissa had simply asked her whether they could take part in this session, and it had been no problem.

Dimitri and I started twirling over the gym's training mat in what I thought were acceptably graceful motions. Until suddenly, there was a foot of Dimitri's in my way, planted where it definitely had no business being, which send me flying a few feet in the wrong direction. Dimitri caught me in the last moment before I hit the mat, but the instructor had seen.

"Damn it," I hissed. "You should have caught me in one of those flashy backbending holds. That would have scored us points."

"And broken your spine," Dimitri said dryly.

From the other side of the room, a giggle reached my ears. I shot a devastating glance at our laughing opponents. From here, it looked like Lissa was mistaking this whole thing with an opportunity to get physical with Christian, because the two were pressed so close against each other that no tangoing should have been possible anymore. Somehow, they still managed to move.

"Let's do the leg thing," I commanded more than suggested.

Dimitri's hand was around my waist, mine around his shoulder. We tried the step that the instructor had shown us earlier today, a jumpy step that involved kicking a foot up in the air. Around us, the other couples were all throwing their feet around in their attempts to duplicate the move.

My first try ended up with my foot tangled in Dimitri's pant legs. Then I kicked a neighboring couple. Then I almost landed on my butt. Then I realized that our so-called dancing had brought us closer to Lissa and Christian, who were now almost next to us.

"They're having fun," Dimitri commented. It was true: I had no idea what part of what they were doing was actually tango, because they were lying in each other's arms laughing half the time.

"Are they laughing at us?" I asked suspiciously.

"I can't tell," Dimitri said.

"Are they any good?"

"Can't really tell either, but judging from the look the instructor is giving them, they're not doing much right."

At this moment, Lissa and Christian passed us in what looked like freelance dance moves, kind of graceful, at least on Lissa's part, but nothing like tango.

"Maybe we should improvise, too," I mused. I had no time to think it through, because then, Dimitri grabbed me and swirled me around so wildly that I lost all sense of up and down for a moment, but he somehow managed to land me on my feet. He smiled, holding me tightly.

"Now, that might make it fun," he said.

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "Do it again! No, wait. It's supposed to be tango!"

"Isn't tango the dance of the wild and spirited?" Dimitri asked. "Shouldn't it be flexible when we have wild and spirited new dance moves?"

"Honestly, I have no idea," I replied. Dimitri dissolved my worries by giving me another sweep through the air. I was disheveled and breathless when he set me down, but, inspired, started several fast spins that left me dizzy and even more disheveled. I heard a small laugh from Dimitri. I tensed my body when I suddenly felt myself flying backwards, and came to as sudden halt a few inches from the floor, stopped by Dimitri's strong hands. He was really getting the hang of this.

"I think this needs to be a little rounder," I said from almost on the floor. His hands lifted me up a little, and I bent my back to achieve the graceful arch they always did in dance shows.

Upside down, I could see Lissa twirling wildly, guided and secured by Christian's arms. The bright laughter that floated over the music was hers.

Then Dimitri pulled me up, and Lissa twirled again and barreled into me, knocking me off balance and sending me tumbling into Dimitri. He stumbled and narrowly avoided Christian, who had dived after Lissa to catch her fall in the last second.

When we had all righted and disentangled ourselves, we found the instructor had planted herself in front of our hilarious foursome. Lissa and Christian looked at her guiltily, though they hadn't entirely gotten rid of their exhilarated smiles. Lissa still looked a little dizzy from all the twirling she'd been doing, holding on to Christian to keep her balance.

"We're sorry if we disturbed anyone," Christian said candidly. "We got a little carried away."

"It's just because your lessons are so fun and inspiring," I added.

"We'll be more careful," Dimitri said.

"And we thank you for letting us participate," Lissa said politely.

Then we left quickly, so that no one would see up collapsing in a heap all over each other and laughing our hearts out.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Hope you liked the tango challenge:)**


	6. Guilty or Not?

I think amongst the hardest moments of a guardian's life were moments like these: being in the middle of a party, yet not being part of it. It was the birthday of one of Lissa's more friendly royal associates, Marie Conta. She turned forty – there were no people our age in Lissa's job – and she was especially honored by the queen's presence at her birthday party. Lissa was out there enjoying herself in the throng, and I was lining the walls along with a multitude of other guardians. At least Dimitri was here with me, standing about five feet to my left.

It being a friend's birthday, Lissa did actually enjoy herself. She didn't like many of her royal advisors and Council members, but she liked Marie and that made the party worthwhile for her. Also, now that everyone looked up to her and admired her, there was less social pressure on her – when you were the standard of fashionable society, there was not much you could do wrong.

Christian was at the party, too, though much less enthusiastic about it. He didn't play out his own royal status, and I think he didn't like sharing Lissa with so many others. I still had the feeling that he was holding back on a lot of feelings on occasions like these, when the sociable masses crowded around Lissa; he could hardly complain about her being a popular queen when he had assisted in making her queen. And he was proud as punch of her, no matter what.

Tim was there too, very stiff and nervous. Lissa had made him come so that he could get to know important people. He had refused, initially, but one pleading look from Lissa had overrun his resolve. He and Christian weren't exactly company for each other, though. They hadn't warmed up to each other yet.

After watching the party for about an hour or two – Lissa drifting from here to there, surrounded by her admirers, Christian sulking in her vicinity, then more and more in the distance, Tim taking everything in with large eyes, always startled when someone talked to him – I was starting to get bored. My feet started to hurt, I was thirsty and all the drinks in those fancy glasses looked really enticing. But that was nothing that could bother me. I had been a guardian for half a year now, and I knew the drill. No own personal needs until the party was over. Or until I was on break.

Every now and then, Lissa would check on Tim and me. She swirled by like a cloud of laughter, and disappeared into the crowd again. It was nice watching her thrive in her element. There had been times when all her social grace couldn't help the strain that royal parties put on her.

"It's nice to watch her," I said to Dimitri.

"It is," he agreed in an indulgent tone. Ever since Lissa had brought him back from being Strigoi, he kind of had a soft spot for her.

"I wish Christian would take to socializing a little more. He's just making his own life hell by closing himself off at these events."

"What is he doing?" Dimitri asked.

"Well, nothing."

"No, I mean now. Look."

I searched for Christian in the crowd; he'd been standing at the far wall, leaning against the windows. Now he was approaching a woman, some Badica of minor importance. His expression was spooky. He looked as if he'd just seen a ghost.

"Maybe he wants to talk to her?" I said. That would be a good idea, in my view. But maybe he should lay off the spooky-face.

"He's not," Dimitri stated. Christian had walked up to the woman and was staring at her. She was drawing back from him, probably weirded out.

"He's trying to make a new antisocial-behavior-record," I suggested with a groan. Really, he should make a little more effort. That people didn't talk to him was largely due to his abrasive attitude, not to their lack of interest. He was noticed, what with being the queen's boyfriend and a pioneer defensive magic user. Especially after the battle, his social standing had soared.

"Something's wrong," Dimitri said. Christian was still standing where the woman had left him, staring after her with wide eyes. When she was out of his view, he scanned the room, erratically. He paused when he noticed us staring at him. Then, he dropped his gaze, and went back to leaning against the window. There was a tension in his body that hadn't been there before.

That was where he stayed most of the night. He'd talk to people when they approached him; but mostly, they avoided him, which was no wonder with the expression he was wearing. After another hour or so, Tim showed up beside us.

"Hey guys. Aren't you bored out of your mind?" He greeted us.

"Oh, it's alright – it's just a different kind of soap opera if you see it in the right angle," I retorted lightly.

"I, um, I don't want to bother you. Is it permitted to talk to you at all?" Tim stammered. "Or am I endangering the queen by distracting her guardians?"

We both laughed softly at that. "You're not bothering us," I said. "And you're perfectly allowed to talk to us. In fact, you're very welcome."

"Right," he said, relieved. "So, um, I was just wondering… if a person asks me what my 'royal affiliation' is, what do I say?"

"You're what now?" I blurted.

"Good suggestion, but that's about what I said the first time, and it didn't go too well with them," he replied sheepishly.

"They mean your connection to Lissa, I guess," Dimitri offered helpfully. "How you got to know her or got close to her."

"Oh," I said stupidly. "Yeah, they're really into knowing things about Lissa. Knowledge about the queen has become a fashionable thing."

"Okay," Tim said. "And, what exactly do I say? 'Cause I imagine it being kind of awkward, saying, _Her guardian picked me up from the street and since then she's been tutoring me in magic_."

I laughed again. "Sounds legit. Though you might want to formulate it more grandly. Maybe try, _I am a spirit user, connected to her by the bonds of magic and an equal mind_."

"How poetic," Dimitri commented.

"I'll try that," Tim said gravely. "But I guess I'll be leaving soon, anyway. I already met so many people my head is swimming."

"Royalty can have that effect."

"Well, good night, you guys."

We watched Tim disappear back into the crowd. He was taken in by the Lissa-bubble on his way to the doors, which probably prolonged his stay considerably with goodbyes and further introductions. A while later, Lissa picked up Christian and prepared to leave. She never stayed until the end of a party. She usually gave whoever was throwing the party some queen-free time to go wild, and she liked to get a decent night's sleep even when going out.

Dimitri and I pushed off the wall when they were ready to leave. When our charges left, so would we. Along with me, a few other queen's guardians left their respective positions.

"You know, sometimes, I really wish I could stay longer," Lissa sighed, once outside. "But it would be mean to you guys, anyway."

No one of us said anything to that. It was true that neither of us enjoyed these events enough to encourage her to stay longer.

I studied Christian as we walked over the soggy lawn towards the palace. He looked pretty pale in the wintry sunlight, and not at all disappointed to leave. Relieved was more like it.

"Did something happen, Christian?" I asked him quietly. He looked up in alarm.

"No," he said curtly. No embellishments.

….

The reason why Lissa had wanted a good night's rest lay in the duties of the following day. She had an unpleasant item on her agenda today: a court hearing.

Some time ago, a trio of Moroi water users had staged an attack on her, trying to drown her in the middle of a busy Court lawn. They hadn't had their hearings and trials yet, because too much had come in the way of it. Today was the day. Lissa had to preside over the hearing. She didn't have to say anything to the proceedings, but her presence was required. She hated this business. So did I.

"Under the witness of her Royal Majesty, Queen Vasilisa, and the royal Council of the Moroi, I hereby declare the hearing concerning the attack on her Royal Majesty, Queen Vasilisa, to be opened. The subjects of investigation may be brought in."

The announcer's voice was filling the big justice hall easily. From where I stood, I could only see the back of his bald head. The whole room was opening up in front of me. Next to me, Lissa was fidgeting slightly on her grand wooden chair.

The three Moroi were walked in, guarded heavily. I recognized the small, stout woman with the dull black hair and watery, panicked eyes. I had seen her immediately after the attack. She looked as panicky now.

I had heard the preliminaries of a hearing before; every accused had to state their names and personal details and such. The evidence was read, which was pretty condemning. They had been caught on the spot, weak from magic use. I let my eyes wander over the audience while the judge and the lawyers kept talking. The hall was filled up pretty well. People took an interest in anyone who attempted to hurt their beloved queen. I was glad Lissa was so popular with the majority. However, it was the disagreeing minority that I had to worry about.

I stopped when my eyes fell on Christian. There was something about him again that alarmed me. He was staring blindly ahead of him, gripping the back of the chair in front of him tightly.

What was wrong with the boy? He wasn't suddenly afraid of big accumulations of people, was he? I had learned in one of Lissa's classes that that was possible. In any case, he was anything but relaxed. He looked like he might snap in half if one of his neighbors made the mistake of coughing.

Dimitri had noticed, too. He looked after Christian more like a brother than a guardian, sometimes. It was actually really cute. Now, he was slowly approaching Christian, trying not to draw too much attention. When he put a hand on his shoulder, Christian jumped about two feet in the air. A few heads turned towards him, but only those in the vicinity. I could see him and Dimitri exchanging a few words. Christian obstinately kept his head turned to the front, not looking at Dimitri. He shook his head; Dimitri drew back and resumed his spot on the wall. He kept watching Christian, though.

The judge had now progressed to the accused's motives for the attack. This proved to be a little tough, because they were all saying the same thing: they had no idea why they did it.

"Withholding information from court is a serious offense," the judge said, not for the first time. He was losing his patience a bit with those three. "I ask for the last time. Why. Did you. Do it?"

The small, watery-eyed woman was close to tears by now. She was whimpering, and no longer sounded very coherent. In fact, she didn't manage to get any understandable words out. She just started crying in earnest. The judge sighed.

"We'll postpone this hearing until further notice. Until then, there will be some more private interrogations. The hearing is dissolved."

Lissa stood up. I followed in her wake, keeping close to her and watching her surroundings. On more formal occasions, there would have been people making the crowd stay seated until she had completely left, but Lissa didn't enforce this usually. All the people from the audience who now got up and started to file out of the room created a chaos that was difficult to monitor, but since we were taking another way out, at least Lissa didn't have to go through the throng. Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed Dimitri, fighting his way through the masses; he was going the wrong direction, so he had to squeeze past everyone. He was going to where Christian had sat earlier.

That was all I could see, then the side door closed behind us.

Lissa was shaking her head disbelievingly. "How can they be so adamant in claiming that they don't know?" She frowned. "How do they interrogate them, Rose? Are they using any.. disagreeable methods?"

"They're not torturing them, if that's what you mean," I immediately told her. "We don't live in the Middle Ages, even though Court life sometimes makes you think so."

"Well, they're remarkably stubborn," Lissa continued. "Unless they really don't know."

"How can they not know?" I asked her skeptically. "You don't just move a fountain full of water and envelop someone by accident. They had a motive. They're just hard to break."

"Maybe." Lissa looked at me questioningly. "But maybe…" She stopped herself. "We should wait until we're in my room."

She kept her secretive silence until we were up at her apartment. We made ourselves at home in her living room.

"Now, talk. What's your big idea?"

There was still a big crease on her forehead. It was a miracle the girl's skin was as smooth as it was, what with all the worrying she was doing. "Well, what if they really don't remember? What if someone made them forget?"

"Made them forget? That sounds like… "

"A twisted way of compulsion. I should have thought of this before. It would be possible for someone with good compulsion skills to make a Moroi do something and then forget about it. It's not so different from what I used to do with compulsion. Only, this is much stronger. They would have been compelled to do something remarkable, not just to overlook something like I used to do. And there were three targets… "

"Lissa, the kind of power that would require… it would have to be a spirit user. Earth users are okay at compulsion, but no earth user could pull off a large-scale compulsion like that. Even you would have difficulties."

"You're right," Lissa said. "There's a lot of power behind it. Either this was an incredibly powerful spirit user, or there were more than one. I think that's more likely."

This was crazy. Dangerously so. "You're saying that there are spirit users out there who not only know how to harness their powers, but target you with it. Do you know how dangerous that would be?"

"Yes, I know," she said seriously. "They tried to kill me. I haven't forgotten."

"Ugh. I don't like this idea," I said. "I don't like this one bit. Especially since it sounds plausible."

The door opened and we immediately stopped talking. But it was just Dimitri and Christian.

"Sit down, the two of you." I let them no time to say anything. "Lissa just had a very dangerous notion." While Lissa filled them in on her suspicion, I gave Christian a quick once-over. He looked tired. And he seemed to have difficulties concentrating on what Lissa said. I noticed Dimitri giving him worried glances. I would ask him later what had happened. This was more important.

"One or more spirit users who compelled water users into attacking you?" Dimitri summed it up. "I don't like the sound if it."

"It would make sense. They had no hope of escaping, whether they were successful in the murder or not. There was no chance the guardians would let them slip away. All of Court was locked down for half a day following the attack," I mused. "Why would they attempt such a thing with that little hope of success and no way of getting away? Unless they didn't do it voluntarily."

"Would that mean they're innocent?" Dimitri asked.

"If they've been compelled, it could have been completely against their will. Of course, there's the possibility that they consented to the compulsion – maybe it was to erase the memory of anyone else who might be compromised when they were taken." Lissa was turning out to be quite the detective here.

"Tim's a spirit user," Christian said slowly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Lissa scoffed. "He can hardly compel anyone into looking the other way. If the water users we have captured are innocent, we have to find out. They could be sentenced to death for attempted murder. We can't let that happen if they're innocent!"

"I'd worry much more that the people who pulled the strings are still out there. They could try again," I said. Typical Lissa. It was her life that had been threatened, but the first thing she did was to worry about others.

"Did anything come up in your spirit user search?" Dimitri inquired.

"No," Lissa said. "But these ones wouldn't make themselves known, would they? With malicious intentions, they would stay in the dark."

"We should inform Hans," I said. "It would change his investigations drastically if he'd look for spirit users."

Suddenly, Lissa didn't seem so sure. "I don't know," she said uncertainly. "Wouldn't it appear fairly hostile for me to suggest other spirit users might be involved?"

"What do you mean, hostile?"

"I don't know. It would definitely mean admitting how much experience I have with compulsion."

"True."

"And will it help Hans any? He is already looking for anyone associated with the three captured Moroi. The information that the person he's looking for might be a spirit user who doesn't let on that he's a spirit user probably wouldn't help him any."

"I think you're right," Dimitri said. "There's no reason to tell Hans what might implicate Lissa and help nothing. But we should keep our eyes open. It might happen again."

Back in our own apartment, I was still mulling this new angle over. I so hoped that Lissa was wrong. A hostile spirit user was a huge threat. Worse than a few wayward water users.

However, it really was plausible. Especially with the insanity issues spirit users were facing, it wasn't far off to imagine one being too carried away by spirit's darkness to care much about the water users they were leaving to their doom. The pictures of Robert Doru came back to me, how unfocused he'd been…

"Robert Doru," I exclaimed, suddenly.

"What?" Dimitri had been about to fix us dinner. He was tossing a bowl of salad and shot me a glance over some bottles of olive oil and vinegar.

"Robert Doru. He has a motive. He could do it. He's crazy enough to do it. Yet he might have learned too much from his brother to do it himself."

Dimitri stared at me for a moment. Then he turned back to the salad. "Could be," he said after a long deliberation. "Could be any other spirit user, too. Robert Doru has more cause to take revenge on us, not on Lissa. He doesn't even know her."

 _He has cause to take revenge on me, because I killed his brother_ , I corrected Dimitri mentally. Out loud, I said: "Who knows what goes on in this jumbled brain of his?"

"Rose." Dimitri walked over to the table with the salad bowl. He put it down on the table and then wrapped his arms around me. "For him, we can't start an official search."

I knew this. We couldn't just out of the blue accuse this guy who was a completely unknown number for guardian headquarters. What we had experienced with him was kept under wrap. Because he had been involved in my breaking in a Moroi high-security prison. Because he had seen me kill his brother. If I wanted the guardians to look for this guy, I would have to tell them why. Why I knew him.

"So, we just do nothing."

"We keep our eyes open."

I enjoyed his warm embrace for a moment.

"Do we have more problems than that?" I asked him eventually. "Christian. What was wrong with him?"

Dimitri's face darkened. "I don't know, but something was."

"What spooked him so much?"

Dimitri sighed. "Obviously, he doesn't want anybody to know. He didn't want to tell me, either. But he kind of couldn't hide it."

"What?"

Dimitri looked really serious. "He… it seemed to me that for a few moments, he couldn't see."

I stared at him in horror. "He was blind?"

"Temporarily. It went away. But I think that is what scared him during the hearing."

"He has to see a doctor!"

"I told him that, too. But he refused to admit that anything had happened. He won't go."

"The idiot!" I groaned. "He sure won't let Lissa know anything, either."

"We'll have to watch him. And Lissa. And anything that looks dangerous," Dimitri said.

"Yes," I agreed. "As if it's not enough that we have to protect them from the whole world. They're a danger to themselves to boot."

….

The next morning, a call from Lissa had me meet with her abnormally early. She was pacing the room nervously when I came in.

"Rose," she opened. "I decided something."

"Well, come right out with it," I said. I wasn't up to guessing games this early in the morning.

"I will stop taking the pills for a while."

"What?" That had me awake in an instant. "Jeez, Lissa, that only serves to complicate things! What do you want to achieve with that?"

"I want to be able to investigate a little myself," she said firmly, unfazed by my reaction. "I want to take a look at those water users. I might be able to see something of the compulsion if there's been one."

"Why not ask Sonya to do it?" I groaned.

"I don't want to get anyone involved," Lissa said defensively. "It's a far-fetched assumption. And we decided not to tell Hans, so we shouldn't tell anyone else either."

"Sounds sketchy to me. Are you sure you don't just want an excuse to stop taking the pills so you can reach out to spirit again?"

"I don't, Rose!" She stopped pacing and stared at me desperately. "I made you come this early because I want your advice. My usual time for taking the pill would be in fifteen minutes. I wanted to know what you thought about it before I did it. Or didn't. Nothing's done yet."

"Okay, okay, Liss, calm down. You have my advice. I'm against you stopping to take your medication. You doing fine with it. You're better than without, and you know it. Why do you want to stop?"

"That's just the thing, Rose. I feel good with them. I don't want to stop. I mean, yes, it's hard not be able to reach spirit, but the advantages outweigh this by far. I don't want to stop. But if there's something I can do to find out what happened to those water users, I have to do it. We might kill them for something they couldn't help doing, and I couldn't accept that. I don't want to let that happen, Rose."

She looked heartbroken. Here she was, always trying to tear herself in half to get everyone what they needed. I had been unjust to her.

"I'm sorry, Lissa," I said quietly. "Really. I think… You're just too-" You're just too important to risk you just to find out whether someone was compelled, was what I had meant to say. On second thoughts, I realized just how egocentric that sounded. Justice was important. And if you couldn't look to the queen to uphold it, then who was there to say anyone needed to heed it?

"You're right," I finally said. "If you're sure it's the right thing to do, then I won't give you a hard time. I can't really support you in doing it, you understand that, don't you?"

She nodded. With her mind more at ease, she sat down on the sofa with me. "I'm just not sure whether I'll be to start taking them again after… well, after whatever happens next. I will need your help with that."

"I'll be there. I promise."

* * *

 **Hello readers :) This story has been kind of slow going so far... I need a one or two more chapters to prepare, and then things will pick up speed. And then, the real action will start!**

 **Until then, a few more reviews would be really welcome! Tell me what you think!**


	7. A Silver Lining

Nothing changed about Lissa during the next days, which we spent at Lehigh. She didn't turn crazy. A reassuring start to the discontinuation. Nothing further happened with Christian either; Dimitri and I kept each other posted on our respective charge's well-being.

"Feels like we're nurses now," I told him on the phone. " _How's your patient doing today? Oh, he's fine, how's yours?_ "

Dimitri didn't feel like joking about it, apparently. "This is serious. Both of them."

"And they're keeping it a secret from each other," I commented dryly. "Great."

"Lissa just didn't get to tell Christian and didn't want to break the news on the phone," Dimitri said.

I scoffed. "And what is Christian's excuse?"

"That he's creeped out himself?"

"Let's just hope it doesn't happen again."

"Yes," Dimitri agreed.

We had to end the call then, because Lissa arrived and she probably wouldn't take kindly to Dimitri and me gossiping about her and her boyfriend.

"Are you ready?" she asked. We were about to depart for Court once again.

"Good to go," I said. When we were in the car, I asked: "Are you ready to execute you plan yet?"

She glanced to our guardian driver, but I had phrased my question inconspicuously on purpose.

"Not quite yet," she answered. "But it can't be long now. Maybe as soon as tomorrow."

Christian and Dimitri awaited us in front of the palace when we arrived. Lissa and Christian went straight to their apartment in the palace while Dimitri and I went to our place; Lissa had wanted the rest of the day for some quiet time with Christian.

"Let's hope they talk it all out," I said to Dimitri, dropping the small bag with those belongings that always travelled with me on the floor.

"Let's also hope they take their sweet time," Dimitri said with an unexpected glint in his eyes. "So that we can, too."

"What have you planned, comrade?"

"Oh, nothing out of the ordinary," he said candidly. "In fact, something I think we should do a lot more often."

His small nod directed my attention to the bedroom door. Were those rose petals on the floor?

"How can we do that more often than we're already doing it?" I asked pointedly.

"I don't mean the frequency," he said, pulling me into his arms. "I mean the quality."

"I see. You mean the romance."

"Exactly."

"I thought that's what you did when the relationship isn't going well."

"Yes, I guess they say that. But I thought, since that's never going to happen with us, why should we miss out? We can just skip the relationship trouble bit and do it now."

"I like your thinking, comrade. And your timing, especially. Evil spirit users out to get our queen… your charge with freaky vision problems…"

"If you think there's a better time in the future, I'm ready to wait," Dimitri said mischievously.

"Now's just fine," I quickly said when Dimitri made to break our embrace.

"That's what I thought."

He kissed me, and all coherent thought fled my mind. I don't know how we managed to move to the bedroom without breaking the kiss for even one second, but we did. The subtle scent in the air told me that there were indeed rose petals strewn on the floor. Dimitri's hands cupped my face, and he left a cold spot when he stretched out his arm to turn off the light. It didn't go dark; he had lightened a multitude of candles all around the room.

"Where has the romantic been hiding in you all this time?" I murmured when we came up for air.

"Always been there," he smiled. His breath was a sweet caress where it brushed my face.

"There wouldn't happen to be a cook hidden somewhere inside you, too, would there?"

"All this romantic atmosphere and you're thinking about food?" He pulled me on the bed with him. "Seems like I have to make even more of an effort to make your mind stay with me."

He pulled my face down to kiss me again, and, well… there were not more stray thoughts.

….

The next day, when hunger overwhelmed us and made us leave the bed again – that was what usually made us get up on days when we could sleep in – I called Lissa. She had intended to call me when she was ready, but it was already past the time she usually went about her business. She had turned off her phone.

"They are taking their time. I hope they are okay," I said.

When we heard a knock on the door, the first thing we both did was to check whether our clothes were all decent and properly into place. Then I opened to see that we had let the queen wait. Lissa immediately rushed in, apparently having told her other guardians to wait outside. I immediately picked up on her agitation. Christian followed her closely, face unreadable. He was getting really good at that.

"I can access spirit again," she announced, sitting down on our couch and made an effort to collect herself.

"Good," I replied, trying to sound supportive. "So you can take a look at those water users."

She took a breath. "Already did." Her face was pleading with me not to be angry at her for not taking me.

I fought the urge to grab her shoulders and shake her while screaming how dangerous this had been. She just went into jail to face people who didn't need to get out from behind the bars in order to harm her. But I was no longer her only guardian. Or, dhampir friend. There had been guardians with her. And, by the look of it, Christian, who had proven he was capable of protecting her from magical attacks. She had been well guarded. So, instead of flying off the handle, I sat down opposite her so as to be able to look her closely in the eye. I had found out that without the bond, I had to resort to such measures to be able to read her emotions.

"Don't analyze me, Rose, I'm going to tell you."

"Ah." I drew back a little. "Sorry. So tell me. What did you find out?"

"Let's wait for Christian and Dimitri, okay?"

I turned, surprised. Christian had kind of disappeared out of my focus. I have to say, I was surprised to see them: they were working side by side in the kitchen. Christian had joined Dimitri wordlessly and assisted his breakfast efforts in making coffee, while Dimitri piled some plates and stuff from the fridge onto a tray.

The picture was kind of… nice. Peaceful. A not so peaceful part of me was feeling a small pang at seeing Christian get on so well with my boyfriend. In a weird and very non-sexual way, this reminded me of the beginning of his relationship with Lissa, when it had felt to me like he was taking her away from me.

Lissa started talking when we were all sitting together with coffee in our hands.

"I was right," she opened, leaving a little pause for us to protest. "But it's…" She frowned pensively. "It's different from what I thought. I found a tiny speck of spirit in them. Kind of like an implant… as if someone had pressed a little cloud of spirit into them. They are on their forearms. Right where my tattoo is."

She took a pause to look at her arm. The tiny black dot had been given to her when she was going through the trials to test the candidates that ran for the throne. It prevented her from disclosing any information regarding the trials.

"Do you mean someone tattooed them with a compulsion tattoo that made them attack you?" That would be the most complex compulsion in a tattoo so far, even exceeding the Alchemist tattoos.

"No," she said. "I think tattoos are much like the charms I make; they can work simple magic, nothing as complex as this. They must have been compelled into the attack by normal means, eye contact and such. What I could find out is that they really could not remember why they did it. I compelled them into telling the truth, but I got the same answers. They don't know."

"But how can there still be spirit in them?" I asked. "Spirit's too volatile to stay. We've seen this with Olive's blood."

"Adrian contained the magic with silver," Dimitri interjected.

"You're saying they have silver implanted into their arms? Why?"

"Maybe the silver contains the compulsion charm," Christian suggested. "To keep the memory from resurfacing?"

"Or to make the compulsion stronger and longer lasting," Lissa said, her eyes suddenly lightning up. "In order to send them to Court by themselves to execute the attack, and then made them forget why they did it, the spirit user would have to use a massive amount of spirit on each one of them. Implanting a charmed piece of silver would take some of the strain off him or her. It would allow them to keep a distance, because they could have worked the magic beforehand, and activate it shortly before sending them off."

"Cowardly _and_ sick," Christian remarked with a disgusted grimace.

"We need to find out if the speck of spirit you saw really is silver. That would support your theory," I said. Turning to Dimitri, I asked: "Can we have them x-rayed?"

"Without telling them why? That will require some persuasion. But Hans has come to trust in weird ideas when they come from you. You should ask him."

"Ask him now," Lissa demanded. "Even contained in silver, the spirit will eventually fade. I need Sonya to second my results. Then we will have to hope that this is enough evidence for guardian headquarters and the judge to let them go. I can't track the magic back to its caster."

The others continued to drink their coffee while I called Hans and offered probably the hundredth crazy idea he'd heard from me so far.

The inevitable had happened when I came back.

"There's only one doughnut left," I stated accusingly, looking at the almost empty plate. Before I could scrutinize the others' faces for traces of powdered sugar, Dimitri said in an innocent voice: "There were only three to start with."

Before we could go into it, Lissa and Christian interrupted us impatiently. I told them about the call. Hans had agreed to let one of the three water users be taken to the Court hospital to be x-rayed, strict security measures provided.

They wouldn't have Lissa anywhere near the water users – for the hearing, they had been withheld blood so as to make them weak and harmless. We waited until Hans called me back with the news that a doctor was ready to show us the x-ray pictures.

"Last time we were here, we were frantically searching for you two and didn't know whether we would find you dead or alive," Lissa said in a small voice when we were standing in the hospital's entrance hall. The same memories came flooding back to me, too; they belonged to the worst moments in my life.

Lissa pressed closer to Christian's side. I locked eyes with Dimitri, both of us telling the other mutely that it was over, that we had survived. Then we all shook the remembrance and went to the reception desk.

This time, the receptionist did recognize Lissa. Her eyes went wide. She grabbed her phone hectically and after a few short words, told us breathlessly that the doctor would be ready for us in a few minutes.

We drew back to the sides to be out of the way of the normal busy hospital buzz.

"What do we do next?" I asked in a low voice.

"It seems like we have little chance of finding the spirit user that's behind this," Dimitri said. "If Lissa can't detect a hint as to the magic's origins…"

"I can't," Lissa said apologetically. "I don't even know whether there is a way."

Christian drew in a sharp breath. We all turned to him.

"What is it?" Lissa asked him anxiously. Dimitri and I eyed him carefully. He blinked and stared at Lissa intensely.

"Nothing. So, you… um… there's really no chance you can track it back?"

"I just said, I can't do it. But my priority is to prove that the water users are innocent, not to capture the real culprit."

"Lissa, they are not innocent," I countered her, still fixing Christian attentively. "They were the ones who did the thing. They tried to kill you."

"Yes, but they were forced to do it. That makes them innocent."

"You're only assuming that," Christian interjected. He eyes were still trained on Lissa. He was breathing deeply, as if to calm himself, his hands pressed against his legs. "All you can tell is that they were compelled into forgetting why they tried to kill you. That doesn't mean they were also compelled into doing it."

"But why else would they need compulsion?" Lissa flared up. "The fact remains, we can't convict them as long as we don't know."

"Christian is right," Dimitri said calmly. "You only proved that a spirit user is involved. Letting them go free would still mean setting three magic users loose who are skilled at offensive magic and ready to use it. That would be too dangerous."

"But at least they should-"

Lissa was interrupted by the receptionist, who had come over and stood a few feet away, afraid to interrupt us.

"I will lead you to the briefing room," she said nervously. "If you'd follow me, please."

She let us to a small room with backlit x-ray monitors on a wall. A tall bespectacled doctor was putting some pictures into them.

"Oh, hello," he greeted us, totally unfazed by Lissa's presence. "Your majesty. Guardian Belikov, how are you?"

"Very well, thank you, doctor," Dimitri said with a smile. He introduced the doctor as the one who had treated him after the Court attack.

"You are refreshingly normal in the face of royalty, doctor," I said when introductions were done. Lissa made a noise of agreement.

He smiled. "You know, when you're in the business of life and death, a person's earthly status begins to cease to be important. Sickness and injury do not stop at royalty, so I do not differentiate."

"Please, can you be my doctor if I ever happen to land in here?" Lissa said. "I wish more people would think like that."

"It would be an honor. Now, to those scans you demanded."

"Our hunch was right, wasn't it?" One look at the depiction of a forearm told me what we came here to learn. The small dot was a sharp white contrast in the otherwise grayish parts that were the flesh and muscle around the bone.

"There is a foreign body imbedded into the flesh of the forearm," confirmed the doctor. "It is a metal, though which I cannot tell from the scan. It must have been there for a long time, because the entry wound is completely healed. There were no apparent infections or complications."

"Or, a spirit user _healed_ it in," I muttered under my breath.

The doctor raised an eyebrow at that. "Why would anybody do that?"

"That's what we don't know," I replied.

I was surprised when Lissa told me we wouldn't be going to any meetings today. We were going straight to her rooms in the palace from the hospital. Christian and Dimitri were still with us.

"I used spirit today. I don't want to be in the middle of a Council session when I have a crazy fit."

"Oh. Right."

"Well, you'll have to monitor me," she said. Then she hesitated. "I, um… It might not come to any problems. Maybe. I… Well, I took a pill after I used spirit. Just one. But I thought, maybe it reduced the aftereffects."

I nodded. "It's certainly worth a try."

"Look… Don't tell anybody I'm off the pills, okay? Everyone always looks so serious when I talk about the pills. It sucks."

"Alright, no problem," I said. "Are you going back on now you found out what you wanted?"

"Not immediately. I'm not sure there isn't more to look into later. And I want to test this after-spirit-use pill thing out."

"Right," I said, again. "What's the plan for today?"

"I'm going to get some paperwork done, and I invited Tim to come over later."

"Good."

"Not good," Christian growled.

I looked at him in surprise, while Lissa hissed angrily. "Don't start this again, Christian."

"What, what did he start?" I asked.

"I won't, because you won't listen anyway," Christian retorted testily.

"I listened to you, and you're talking crazy!" Lissa had raised her voice. We had reached the door to the apartment. The guardians were keeping their face stonily turned up front, but both Lissa and Christian waited to continue their argument inside.

I used the brief respite. "What are you arguing about?"

"Christian is convinced that Tim is up to now good."

"I'm saying you don't know the guy and you're way too trustful about him."

"You were saying that he's using spirit against you! That's no light accusation!"

"I know, but-"

"Christian, setting aside the fact that Tim is a nice guy and wouldn't even dream of doing what you're saying, he would also be totally incapable of it!"

"But I'm telling you, he's not what you think!"

"You won't even say what you think he did, you're just taking about attacking!"

"Hey! Guys!" I shouted over their clamor. "We're still in the room."

Lissa looked at us apologetically, but Christian still fumed.

"What makes you think Tim attacked you?" Dimitri asked calmly.

"I… I'm sure he did," Christian said vaguely.

"Look, I'm going to have to second Lissa in this. Tim is way too weak and unskilled a spirit user to do much in the way of attacking," I told him carefully.

"Not to mention that he is a nice guy and there's no reason he'd do something like this," Lissa claimed.

Christian gave us a bitter smile. "Of course he is."

"If you have the feeling you are being attacked, you should tell us your suspicions," Dimitri said. He wasn't doing it intentionally, but he had something of the tone you'd use when calming down a deranged person.

"Look, forget about it," Christian said tiredly "It's nothing." He seemed to be torn between the doors to the bedroom and exit; he chose the exit.

A brief silenced reined when the door had closed.

"Are you guys okay?" I asked Lissa eventually.

Lissa sighed. "He'll come around. I'm sorry. We shouldn't take it out on each other in front of you. I didn't mean to put you into an embarrassing situation."

"Do you think there's anything to what he says?" Dimitri asked.

"Of course not! Rose, you know what he was like when Adrian came along. He has a jealousy issue. It will pass."

I couldn't fail to notice the jealousy thing was true, but when I met Dimitri's eyes, I knew he thought the same as I did: Something's wrong here.

….

Could I be any more stupid? How did I get the stupid idea of practicing my knife-throwing skills anyways? I guess I wanted to show off when I met Tim and he asked me just how many kinds of fighting a dhampir could do. Luckily for me, he followed me into the gym to watch me; so, when I stupidly cut my shoulder by swinging out with my throwing knife, he welcomed the opportunity to practice some skills of his own: healing. He'd become much better at it, it seems; the cut was gone in a heartbeat. He caught my eyes briefly when he happily said that apparently, he wasn't hopeless after all.

Really. Knife throwing. I'm probably the only guardian on Court who actually does that.


	8. Out of Nowhere

"'Special weapons training'", I read from my training schedule. "That's going to be interesting."

"Sounds like it," Carl agreed. "But it could as well be explosive materials theory."

"Ugh."

"Or… not."

I followed Carl's gaze to see our instructor walk in, and laughed out loud. The heads of the six other students turned to look at me.

My special weapons instructor was none other than Dimitri.

His only sign of acknowledging the students assembled in the room was a curt nod to us. Without giving me the slightest sign whatsoever, he proceeded to pull down a canvas and turn on a projector connected to a small laptop on the front desk.

A few students giggled behind their hands. They were still looking at me. I realized that my face right now didn't make me look like the smartest person alive. I quickly checked myself.

"Before actually handling these weapons, I want you to know what they are, what they are used for and what their dangers are", Dimitri said. "Therefore, the first two lessons will be held in a classroom. When the practical lessons start, I will expect all of you to know everything we covered in this class by heart."

Unbelievable. He just comes into my class and holds it. Without the least secret sign of how queer it is to suddenly be back in the teacher and student roles that initially were such a hindrance in our relationship. Not even one wink.

Carl leaned slightly over to me. "Bet even you will not be able to make him laugh in the classroom" he whispered.

I raised my eyebrows. "Others might have been content to see him move a facial muscle."

"Wouldn't have thought you'd give up without even having tried…" He made an exaggeratedly disappointed face and sat up straight again.

"Tried? To make him laugh?"

"Exactly. I bet you can't do it."

"Are you provoking me into betting against you?"

"Oh, no, I'm just saying. No one can make this guy laugh."

"Of course I can. I did it a hundred times."

Carl leaned his head on his hand and grinned at me. "Show it!"

"You son of a bitch!"

"Are you in or out?"

"What do I get?"

"I'll relieve you of two night shifts."

"Not enough."

"Two… sexy-times night shifts."

I made a face. "Okay, that is so worth it. You're on."

"And if you don't succeed, you get my night shifts."

"As if I'd lose this bet."

"Let's shake hands on it, then."

We shook hands under the table, so that Dimitri wouldn't see. I probably shouldn't be getting into so many bets… but there really was no change I wouldn't win this. Making Dimitri laugh? Piece of cake. I just had to tickle his stomach… okay, maybe not the best solution for a classroom. I'd just have to remind him of the times we… no, also not classroom material. I'd just say something related to how… no, definitely not classroom-safe. Blast it. This might be harder than I thought.

Thinking of ways to trick Dimitri into laughing made the session pass by quickly. Not that I had taken in anything he had said, but I had thought of lots of things that had made me hide dopey smiles.

Since he still had made no sign to me that we were more than passing acquaintances, I didn't do him the curtesy of waiting. Instead, I just walked briskly ahead in the direction of the palace with Carl.

"Why didn't you tell me Dimitri was our instructor?" he asked me.

"Because I had no idea."

"Really? Do you guys talk?"

"Sometimes."

"I guess you separate guardian business from pillow talk, so there was no time for him to tell you," he teased.

"Close," I replied in a dignified tone. "Or maybe it's all this other important business that doesn't leave us the time to talk about minor things like teaching."

"Fool yourself, Rose. Are you going in?"

We had arrived in front of the office Lissa had set up in order to separate her living space from her working space. It seemed like a pointless division to me, seeing as Lissa worked wherever she happened to be when the work descended on her. "Yup. Come in and say hi to Lissa before your shift ends, she doesn't like it when you guys just stand outside and never show yourselves."

I entered into the little hall that led to several offices all belonging to Council members. The door to Lissa's was open. She was on the phone.

"I can do that. But if they decided to relocate her, there's nothing I can do."

She gave me a nod when she saw me coming in, but the call seemed to capture all her attention. "Yeah, you said that. But I'm going to have to call them to hear their side of it. No, I can't just do that, Adrian. We have a diplomatic relationship I have to uphold."

 _Adrian?_ I mouthed silently. Anything related to the Palm Springs group immediately put me on high alert. She grimaced mutely, but kept talking to the person on the phone. "Look, I'm going to call them and see what they say. I'm all in favor of her staying as your assigned Alchemist, too… I will. Yeah."

She put the phone down and sighed loudly.

"What happened? Something in Palm Springs?"

"Adrian says the Alchemist abducted Sydney. That's how he phrased it. It appears like they have pulled her back and replaced her with someone else. Her sister."

"Why would they replace Sydney? She's the best for the job," I said.

"What do I know about Alchemist job allocations? Maybe they want to toughen someone else up and are using the close-contact opportunity. What's funny is that they took Sydney away without any prior notification. At least, that's what Adrian says. Maybe she just didn't tell him."

Lissa didn't know about Dimitri's and my suspicion that there might be more to Sydney and Adrian's relationship than that of an Alchemist working with a Moroi.

"Is there anything you can do about this?" I asked.

She sighed again. "No. I'm going to call them and ask why they replaced her and I'll ask them to let her stay, because I promised Adrian. But I don't think that will help matters any. On the contrary, they might just not let her stay to spite us. They should have notified us, though. I'm going to call Hans, too, but I'm sure he would have told me if he knew about an impending replacement."

Lissa spent the next hour and a half on the phone, talking to the Alchemists, to Hans, the Alchemists again, and finally called Adrian with the news that she didn't know where they had placed Sydney and that they wouldn't put her back on duty in Palm Springs. Lissa was fairly frustrated when she finally put the phone down for good.

"Great. Now I wasted good time to achieve nothing."

"What did you want to achieve?" a voice said from the door. Christian had come in.

"Sydney disappeared and Adrian is giving me hell to make me find her. There's nothing I can… what happened to you?"

Lissa was out of her chair and halfway to Christian's side before I noticed the black eye.

"Chill out, Liss. We were training. I didn't pay attention."

"Can I heal it?" There was a hopeful note in her voice; she was dying to use spirit. Christian quickly and reasonably quenched that hope, though: "No!"

Lissa continued to make a small fuss about Christian, but he was much more interested in hearing about Sydney. So was Dimitri, when he joined us a few minutes later. Lissa got a few more calls throughout the day; amongst others, from Jill, who pleaded with her to have Sydney sent back because the whole Palm Springs group had taken so much to her. But there was nothing Lissa could do. She tried to at least find out Sydney's location, so that we could contact her, but the Alchemists were really uptight about her. It sounded like she was in big trouble with them. I knew she had skirted trouble before, for her adventures with Dimitri and me on the run. I hoped she wouldn't be transferred back to Russia or anything.

"Now, about you," I said menacingly as soon as the door had closed behind Dimitri and me that night in our apartment. "What did you think you were doing, not telling me about the instructor thing?"

"I was thinking that our personal involvement doesn't mean anything for our professional relationship," he replied.

"But it does," I murmured under my breath, thinking of my bet with Carl.

I didn't achieve anything the next lesson. And the next. This was getting really frustrating. Throw into the package that Lissa was already starting to fret about exams again – hadn't the semester just started? – and the continuing silence from Sydney and pleading calls from Adrian, it was kind of a frustrating time in general.

"Uh. Why can't I just sit in your classes without taking the exams," I groaned, letting myself fall face-down on Lissa's couch after another very serious special weapons training session. At least we would get to actually shoot from now on. "It wouldn't make a difference!"

"It would seem suspicious," Lissa replied heartlessly, "and it doesn't do you any harm to learn a thing or two. You should be grateful you're getting a college education. Not many dhampirs do."

"I know, I know!"

"Suck it up, then. Hey, I've got something that might cheer you up," Lissa said, her own mood picking up, too. "I'm going to the theatre in town with Tim tonight!"

I sat up. "You're doing what?"

"Don't start it, Rose. It's going to be safe. I got tickets for us and four other guardians. And I thought I'd pick the ones who actually enjoy a theatre show. It should be fun for all of us."

"Why aren't you going with Christian?"

Lissa sighed. "With the way he's behaving recently… "

"Seriously? You going to the theatre with another guy because you've had an argument? Aren't you two a bit beyond that stage in a relationship?"

"Rose!" Lissa exclaimed indignantly. "It's not like I want to get one on Christian by going with someone else! Tim and I talked about the play, and then I found out they play it here. Christian wasn't interested in going, I asked him!"

"Just saying… anyway. I guess it's a change from routine, at least. It's nice idea."

Lissa seemed relieved I had given my consent at last. Then I remembered something and groaned loudly.

"I can't go tonight! I have my crowd management exam!"

"Oh," Lissa said, looking crestfallen.

"Never mind," I said grudgingly. "You have fun."

"Did you forget about this exam? Did you study at all?" asked Lissa.

"I have so many exams to worry about, this one slipped my mind."

"Then you'd better cram," Lissa said sweetly.

Under her stare, I could no nothing but to spend the rest of the day studying while accompanying her to a few meetings. When she went to her room to get ready, I still had an hour left until my exam.

Luck had me run into Dimitri on one of his patrols around Court. With nothing else to do - except from studying, which I wanted to avoid – I joined him. We ambled up to the out of the way training field that had been set up for the Moroi magic training. Dimitri liked to watch how they were doing. I guess he thought of them as kind of his protégées, because he was still responsible for their physical combat training.

They were amazing. The Moroi had split up according to their element, and were doing precision training. I was witness to Christian illuminating a matchstick from a two hundred feet distance. Judging from the way he was sweating and squinting, it took a lot of effort and concentration to light up anything from this distance.

Unfortunately, we had arrived only to see the last few minutes of their training. Most of the Moroi were already leaving. Dimitri went on in his patrols, while I watched Christian continue for a while.

"You're quite persevering in this," I remarked.

One match lit up. "It pays."

Next to him stood a water user who now focused on the tiny flame. It would only burn for a few seconds. In this time, he would try to put it out with a well-placed drop of water on the match.

The tiny flame vanished. He and Christian both smiled victoriously.

"Well done," I said.

"Let's call it a day," Christian said to the water user. "This is more tiring than torching a handful of Strigoi at close distance."

We walked back to the small adjacent gym slowly, letting the others overtake us.

"Any more… occurrences recently?" I asked him conversationally when the others were out of earshot. I hadn't seen him go weirdo for a while, but Dimitri had said that he still seemed to drift off from time to time. Even Lissa had started to notice that he was behaving oddly.

"Any more what?" He was playing dumb.

"Anything to worry about. Oh, by the way, you know you're talking to someone who can see ghosts. It's not like anything could faze me."

His look when I mentioned ghosts was strange. Had I hit something there? For a moment, I thought he might talk, but then he apparently considered otherwise.

"Nothing worrisome to talk about. Why aren't you with Lissa? The culture club is departing soon, aren't they?"

"I can't go. I have a guardian exam to take," I said. "Why aren't you going, though? Is the theater really that bad?"

"She's seeing _Romeo and Juliet_ ," he exclaimed. "Yes, it is that bad."

"I see," I said, laughing. "I just hadn't thought you'd be so relaxed about Tim going with her."

Christian stopped in his tracks. "She's taking Tim?"

I stopped, too. "Oh, hell. You didn't know that bit, right?."

"And you're not going either," he said grimly. "How convenient." He started to pick up his pace.

"Hey, you're not going to make a scene with them, are you? Christian?" When he just mutely stormed on, I grabbed his arm and make him turn around to me.

"You should know by now that you have no reason to be jealous. Tim is just coming so Lissa isn't alone. Guardians are hardly good company when they're on edge in a foreign environment."

"I don't trust this guy," Christian growled. "Least of all when he's alone with Lissa. I'm telling you, he's been … he's up to something."

"He's been what? Christian, you've been talking in riddles about him all the time! What did he do to annoy you so much?"

"He's a spirit user! And he can use that against people. I don't trust him!"

"But what has he _done_?" He was being so vague that I just couldn't stop myself from thinking that Christian was acting really psychotic here. I was definitely more inclined to think he was exaggerating things than to believe Tim was trying to harm him. That was just plain crazy.

An idea hit me, then. I had seen fits of unreasonable behavior before. In Lissa, and in me. Back when we still had the bond. When I would take the darkness from her. Christian's weirdness had started around the time she had stopped taking her medications. What if he was in some way taking the darkness from her?

"Look, Christian," I said calmingly. "I just had an idea. We need to sit down somewhere and discuss this."

"Don't talk to me like I'm about to ignite a bomb," he said angrily. "I'm not going to let that idiot get away with this. He's not taking Lissa away by himself."

He jerked his arm away from me and continued his way out of the training field. I stood there for a moment, debating what to do and breathing deeply to keep my patience.

"At least calm down before you – Christian?"

He was stumbling, staggering a few feet before coming to a stop. Something was wrong… Had he been injured in training? How could I not have noticed? I raced after him, skidding to a halt by his side just as his knees gave way and he collapsed to the ground.

"Christian! What's…?"

The moment I touched ground next him, a wave of pain hit me, stronger than any pain I had ever experienced before. My chest was being ripped open; I was being burned alive; steel needles were being forced into me slowly. For a moment, I couldn't breathe. Then, a scream tore from my throat.

I barely noticed falling, but I was writhing on the ground. My chest was exploding. Someone was ripping my heard out, operating on me without anesthetics. My screams still filled the air, mixing with Christian's groans. I was dying. I couldn't survive this pain. I had to be dying.

Was Christian dying, too? Would we both leave Lissa alone here, in a mess we had helped create? I concentrated on Lissa's face in my memory; she had healed me so often. Even just thinking about her was good. But the pain didn't stop. Some wild beast was still ripping my chest open.

I can't let it get me, my conscious screamed at me through the pain. Focus! Where's the enemy?

When I forced my eyes open, all I could see was Christian dragging himself through the mud to reach me. He was breathing heavily, pain etched in every inch of his face.

"It's not real, Rose," I barely heard him groan. I was gasping for air, my breaths intermingled with whimpers and cries. What he said didn't make sense. The pain was too intense. The enemy. Where's the enemy? Where's the wound? I was clawing at my chest, but there was nothing. There was no blood on Christian's shirt either.

"It's not real," Christian said again. He had reached me, gripped me. "It's a spirit user messing with you. It's not real."

How could there be no blood when my chest felt like it was torn to pieces? Another scream tore loose.

"Rose, fight it! It's not real!" Christian's voice sounded strained. He was holding me. At least I wasn't dying alone.

"You can stop it. You're not hurt. Look at yourself!" He'd been writhing in pain seconds before. What had happened? Was he safe now? He was Moroi. Had to save him. They came first. But his hands were holding me down, easing my thrashing.

"Rose, you're not injured! You're not in pain! It's not real!" Not in pain? I was in agony. I just couldn't understand where it came from. It's not real. I can stop it. My thoughts became a little more coherent. There was no wound. Where did the pain come from? _Calm down, Rose_.

"Good, keep going, Rose. It's like shutting out the bond. You can do it."

Shutting out the bond. I did that so often. Kind of missed the time. I'd just keep all my thoughts to myself…

The pain stopped.

It was just gone, cut off. My body still felt sore, my heart rate was up to about four hundred, and I was panting desperately, but the pain was gone.

Gathering my wits, I became aware that I was basically lying in Christian's lap, with him gripping my shoulders. He'd realized I'd come out of it; he was helping me sit up.

For a while, we both just sat and caught our breath. From time to time his face was still clenching up, as if smaller bouts of pain still welled up within him. He didn't have my experience and ease in shutting out foreign influence on his own head.

"You okay?" I panted eventually. He nodded. I kept staring at him. "What the hell?" was all I managed to say.

"I don't know, Rose," he said. "I don't know. But that was a spirit user. That's the kind of thing only a spirit user can do."

"We need to…" I put a foot on the ground and tried to push myself up. "We need to check whether Lissa is still here." My whole body was shaking. Even though the pain hadn't been real, my system had received a shock. I managed to stand, but barely.

"We need to…" Christian was having similar problems in picking himself up. "…stop them."

We were not much of a cavalry. Both barely keeping on our feet, it was all we could do to drag ourselves back to the palace, only to learn that Lissa, Tim and the guardians had left fifteen minutes ago.

"We have to call her," Christian said with a desperate tone.

"We'll call her upstairs," I said. "But first, we'll get our wits back a little. And you need a feeder."

Christian was still frazzled, but he let me steer him to their rooms, where I asked the guardian guarding the empty apartment to get us a feeder. The second we were inside, Christian took out his phone.

I didn't feel as pressed in reaching Lissa as he was; there were guardians I trusted with her, and I still didn't think Tim was responsible for this. They had already left when the attack of us happened. I didn't think he was able to pull off a magic stunt like this, and couldn't think of a single reason why he would attack us. Let along the fact that I took him for a decent guy and couldn't imagine him doing anything of the sort. Suspicions had welled up in me briefly, with the shock and Christian's assertions, but I still wasn't convinced of his view.

"I can't reach her," Christian said. "She's not answering."

"She's in a theater," I tried to placate him. "She'd have turned off your phone there. We won't be able to reach the guardians either. We will just have to wait until she returns."

"But-"

"No, stop." I went up to him and steered him towards a chair, pushing him down on it. "Christian, we cannot be sure it's Tim. In fact, it seems really unlikely that it was him. There must be another spirit user at Court, though why he targeted us, I have no idea. You have to calm down. Lissa is safe."

In the end, there was nothing else he could do but wait. I informed Hans; he had to know about an attack like this. He was as disquieted as we were, but he shared my view that it was much more likely to be an unknown spirit user who had attacked us.

After that talk was done, there was nothing else for us to do but sit and wait for Lissa to come back. I tried to call her from time to time, but a theater play would last a while.

"What did it feel for you?" I asked, after a while, into the silence that had settled between us.

"Like when I was shot," he answered quietly. "In the side, from that Strigoi." When I wasn't immediately forthcoming, he gave the question back to me. "What did it feel for you?"

I couldn't be as certain as he was. "My chest hurt. I guess it could have been like when I was shot, but if I remember the pain from then, it was subconsciously."

He frowned. "Subconscious too, then. That's not good."

"What do you mean?"

He looked at me curiously, drawing in a breath but not speaking.

"Come on Christian, you can no longer hide that something is going on. You have to talk to us. Did this happen to you before?"

"Not like this. But that you shared this one confirms I'm not crazy. That helps a lot."

"It could be unrelated."

"I don't think so. I think that, whoever is doing this, and you know who I think that is – I think they mess with your memories. Have access to them. Play them back at you."

"What did they make you remember?" I almost didn't dare ask.

"Different things," he said calmly. I watched him closely while he spoke. Despite his composure, it was evident that this had shaken him. "The feeling of being starved, being hungry and weak, like in Spokane. Seeing fire suddenly flare up, as if I was doing it, in the middle of a crowd. It was always in a crowd. In the courtroom… it was like being hidden in a closet again, hearing my parents talk with Tasha. And… Tasha. I saw her. Normal, as a Strigoi… At that party… I thought she was standing there. It didn't immediately register with me that the whole room would be screaming if she were…"

My heart clenched. Christian didn't deserve this. It had been enough for him to go through all of this once. A part of me still wasn't sure whether he was simply imagining all of this. He'd been through enough to make anybody lose it a little. But I was probably the best address for crazy – if the girl who saw ghosts and had been able to feel another person's feelings didn't believe in a few unusual things, then who? Even I would have had trouble believing it, but sharing the feeling of totally inexplicable but agonizing pain out of the blue made him sound a lot less crazy.

"If… Tim was the one who did this," I began hesitatingly. "Why? Why would he hurt you?"

"Are you blind?" he asked sarcastically. "He likes Lissa. No, I'm not imagining that out of jealousy. He likes her. And he wants her."

"You are very sure of this." I needed some more time to take this in.

"I've had some time to figure it out. I realized it was him one day, when I saw him with this grin on his face. It's him, Rose, I swear it."

"But he was already in the car with Lissa today when it happened. How can that be?"

"I don't know," he admitted, but without really doubting his theory. "Maybe we're misjudging the time and they hadn't left at all."

"And why would he attack me?"

"That I don't know," Christian said, his certainty getting a little crack for the first time.

"Christian, I don't know about this," I sighed. "It could be, but it's just as likely that someone else is behind it. And the biggest refutation to your theory is still that Tim is a really bad spirit user. I just can't see how he could do it. He's just not capable."

"So he would have us believe. Do you remember Avery? She even managed to make Lissa believe she wasn't a spirit user at all. Tim might be doing something similar."

"But driving a person mad just because he's a rival for a girl is a bit extreme, don't you think?"

"Not if he's been using spirit. I'm sorry to say this, but if he's been using it excessively, normal standards don't apply to his behavior."

The door opened slowly; Lissa came in, moving quietly so as not to wake anyone. She was clearly confused to see us still sitting there. It was late. We had closed the blinds against the sunlight, and were sitting in semi-darkness.

"Why are you two still up?" she asked.

I sighed. "You'd better sit down," I told her. "This is going to take a while."

I plunged into the story while Lissa took a seat next to Christian. As I expected, she didn't take the Tim part of our story too well. She was aghast at what had happened to us, and agreed that a spirit user might be behind it. But she was adamant in defending Tim.

"There's no way he could do anything like this," she said. I was glad she was not getting angry, at least, but she seemed more worried than anything. "He was with me, he can't really use spirit, and I trust him. He's a good guy. Why would he do something like this?"

Then I started to recount Christian's other experiences – he didn't seem to enjoy going over it again himself –, and she just changed from staring at me open-mouthed and staring at Christian. Christian avoided her gaze, letting me do the talking, but I think he was grateful when she took him into her arms.

"Why didn't you say something?" she whispered in horror.

"You guys all thought I was going crazy even without knowing why I was behaving like I did," he said. "Wouldn't really have helped, would it?"

The dismal atmosphere around us was shattered by my phone ringing. Dimitri's name was on the display. He'd been on duty all this time and had only just heard from Hans what had happened. He wanted to come to us, of course, but I thought the day had been long enough for all of us.

"Go home, comrade. I'll be there soon. I think it's time for all of us to get some sleep. Maybe things will look different in the morning."


	9. Spellbound

**Hi everyone! Just taking this moment to remind you again to leave a review! Pretty please... You are making me beg^^**

 **Also:**

 **I'm looking for a beta reader for this story, especially someone who can help me with plot issues and avoiding boringness and such. If you're good at that and if you're interested, pm me! No need to ever have beta-ed before. I'd be really happy!**

 **So, here's a long next chapter for you!**

* * *

Things didn't look different, except that I'd been through the whole story again, telling Dimitri. He was angry. Whoever did this to us, they really did not want to cross Dimitri's path right now. Also, he was glad to finally know what had been bothering Christian. Not that it made things any better to know.

What we could all agree on was that there must be a hostile spirit user. What we were of different minds about was what concerned Tim. Christian was still convinced he was the culprit; Lissa was still convinced of the opposite; Dimitri and I were convinced of nothing at all.

We had reconvened in Lissa's room the next morning, and were trying to get Lissa to at least be careful.

"I won't suspect him," she said inexorably. "He's a spirit user. So am I. And so is Nina. Has anyone suspected Nina? We know her a lot less than Tim. I refuse to treat him any differently just because of vague suspicions. I won't."

So we resolved to continue things much like they had been going before. Dimitri and I would keep our eyes open, not only to watch Tim, but to watch for any other suspicious individuals. We didn't suspect Nina because we had barely seen anything of her. She was working as a kind of secretary somewhere, and didn't have much in the way of a social life.

When we met Tim after the incident, he did nothing to further Christian's accusations. If anything, he was shocked at what his new element could do. "They can make you feel pain that isn't there?" He literally shivered at the thought. "That's creepy. I hope that's not the talent I turn out to have."

Christian was on edge every time he set eyes on Tim or knew he was with Lissa, but there was nothing he could do. We were all pretty helpless right now. Add to that that Sydney was still AWOL, we didn't have much to keep our spirits up these days.

Then came my repeat crowd management exam, which totally put me over the edge.

"I failed," I said miserably, dropping into bed next to Dimitri. He was reading; a stylized cowboy hat was all there was on the book's cover.

"Then you should have studied some more," he told me sternly, not moving his eyes from the book.

"Hey, you're supposed to make me feel better! That's official boyfriend duty!"

"Yeah, yeah… later." What? Later? Oh, no, you don't, comrade. No matter how exciting that novel might be, you don't 'later' me.

The game plan was developed quickly. The required clothing wasn't found as fast, seeing as Dimitri and I didn't usually need help in getting in the mood. But in the end, I found something Lissa had given me to my sixteenth birthday as a fun gift. It was a tight fit, but the result was as required.

He didn't look up when I reentered the bedroom after a discreet stop at the bathroom to change. But when I sat at the side of the bed, he did. And the look on his face alone was worth the effort. Let alone what came next.

"Are you feeling better?" Dimitri asked when we were lying in bed, slightly breathless. "Did I fulfill my boyfriend duty?"

"The initial effort needs improving, but once started, you did quite well, I'd say. I'd even go so far as to say you exceeded all expectations."

"Sounds like a good grade."

"Don't mention grades," I groaned.

Dimitri chuckled and leaned over to kiss me again.

My phone started ringing. We ignored it and continued kissing. For quite a while, I think. Not really sure – time stops when Dimitri kisses me.

The sudden loud banging on our door was less easy to ignore than my phone. We tried for a while. Our kiss broke when we both looked towards the door in annoyance.

"Who would need us so urgently in the middle of the night?" I thought out loud.

"I have no idea," Dimitri said. "It can't be urgent."

"But it's really annoying."

Voices had joined the banging. Lissa's and Christian's, I think.

"We should tell them to stop," Dimitri mused. "It is really annoying."

"And isn't it quite impolite, too?" I added.

"Well, I guess we'll have to tell them that. Doesn't look like they're going to stop."

Dimitri sighed, got out of bed and looked for something to cover himself up with. I stayed and looked at his marvelous naked body. No amount of annoying door-knocking could disturb me in enjoying this miraculous sight. I didn't tell him that his pants were lying right under his nose either, but he found them way too quickly, anyways. Once he was disappointingly decent, he tossed me a long T-shirt.

"Come on, Rose. You never know what they'll do. They might come in."

I reluctantly pulled the shirt over and we went to answer the door together. The banging and calling had stopped. Now the voiced were much quieter. We opened the door to find ourselves face to face with Lissa and Christian. They looked surprised to see us. I wonder why people knock on other people's doors in the middle of the night and then are surprised when they actually open the door?

"Why are you undressed?" Lissa asked. Stupid question.

"Don't answer that too literally," Christian interjected quickly. "But why are you… were you in bed?"

"Of course we were in bed," I answered in a dignified voice. "It's what people do most nights."

Lissa looked like I had told her I was going to marry Jesse Zeklos. "Rose, it's the middle of the day. You were supposed to be on duty hours ago. I called you, Hans called you – we thought we'd go check on you before Hans does. In case you… well, um…"

"Have crazy monkey sex and forget the time over it," Christian helped out with a disgusted face.

"You need to get decent really fast, Rose, or you'll be in big trouble with Hans."

"I'm not on duty. I want to sleep," I rejected her. "Can you please leave us alone?"

The entirely unsolicited request to be left alone at night to sleep seemed to totally trip them up. My, they could do with some sleep of their own, the way simple things were just so beyond them right now.

"It's three a.m., Rose," Lissa said uncomprehendingly. "I have a confidential meeting and you were supposed to be the guardian with me, because only one of my guardian should be in on the secrets, and that's you, remember?"

"What the hell is wrong with you, guys?" Christian asked suspiciously. He was eying us as if we'd done something wrong.

Dimitri and I just sighed exasperatedly. I really wanted to go back to bed. I wish they'd leave. Instead, they gave each other a look of total incomprehension.

"Look at their auras," Christian suddenly said. "Look if there's spirit about them."

"Why would there be… oh," Lissa said.

"Please, Christian," I said tiredly. "It's too late for you conspiracy theories. We'll go to sleep now. Good night."

I was about to shut the door in their insolent faces, when Lissa gasped loudly.

"What's with the drama?" I asked. I was getting really annoyed here.

"They have dots of spirit," Lissa said, taking Christian's arm. "They're active. They're under compulsion!"

"To make them think it's night and go to bed?" Christian frowned at us.

Dimitri raised one eyebrow, the way only he could. "We're still here," he remarked.

"Yeah, you know, it's rude to talk about a person when they're present," I added. Honestly, their faces were something to see right now.

"Rose!" Lissa was looking ridiculously desperate. Dude, the girl really wanted to keep me awake. "You're under compulsion! You need to shake it!"

"We need to leave," Christian said, his voice suddenly hard and unfriendly.

"No, we can't leave them-"

"Lissa, we need to leave," Christian repeated. He had gripped her arm. If he had gripped my arm like this, he would have my heel in his guts to show him how much I wouldn't appreciate this. "We can't do anything about them, they'll just sleep. It's you we need to worry about. We need to get you out of here!"

They were getting stressful with their panicked, hushed voices and their stupid stares at us.

"Rose!" Lissa was building herself up in front of me, looking deeply into my eyes. "It's the middle of the day. Shake the compulsion." Her voice sounded very strong, but I really didn't know what she wanted me to do.

"Look, Liss," I said. "I'd really like to sleep now."

Her face fell. "I can't counter-compel her," she said, her voice normal and frightened again.

Christian was pulling her away. Now he was looking me into the eyes really deeply. Great.

"Rose," he said. "You can shake this. You have before. Close off your mind. Don't let anything influence you. We have to leave. Call us when you're back to normal."

Lissa protested some more, but thankfully, Christian finally managed to drag her away. They were both casting us a look that was probably supposed to be very meaningful.

"Now, let's get back to bed," Dimitri suggested when finally we were on our own again.

"Yes," I agreed. "Let's get back to bed."

I've slept on a human schedule before. Sleeping when it was dark out wasn't that odd a thing. Well, I usually didn't do it in Court.

The bed was so cozy. I snuggled up to Dimitri, and he put his arms around me.

"They were really worked up about something," he said.

"Yeah," I hummed. Close your mind, Rose. You've done it before.

It was dark outside.

"We should sleep," I said. We really should sleep. I knew that it was really important Dimitri and I sleep now.

Don't let anything influence you. I've been influenced before, even with Dimitri. A lust charm… not that we need that anymore.

Sleeping is perfectly normal, though. We always do that. Every night.

Every night.

It's dark out.

Wait…

"Good night, Rose," Dimitri said.

"No, wait," I said. It took me a moment to notice what was wrong. "We forgot the blinds. We always put down the blinds at night."

"But it's already dark," Dimitri mumbled, his head buried into his pillow.

"Yes, it's dark," I agreed. Something about that bothered me a lot. "Is it supposed to be?"

"We really have to sleep now, Rose."

Don't let anything influence you. Close off your mind.

Christian had said this, hadn't he? Why? Why would I need to close off my mind? Did it have something to do with it being dark? Because… we were at Court… were I was on a vampiric schedule… I wasn't supposed to sleep when it was dark… but I really needed to sleep now…

"Dimitri," I said, loudly. He didn't answer. "Dimitri!" I shook his shoulder. He groaned reluctantly.

Dark… don't let anything influence you… you're done it before… it's not real, the pain is not real… the darkness was real, though… close off your mind… I can do that now, I can close off my mind, I did it with the pain attack.

Close off your mind…

It was dark. It was the vampiric day. I was _not_ supposed to sleep.

"Dimitri!" I almost screamed, panic rising up within me. I tried to control it as memories of me coming out of a charm's compulsion a long time ago surfaced, Dimitri and me letting go of each other, realizing that we had wasted valuable time while Lissa was in danger, being tortured for her magic. I would not be controlled again. The lust charm had been in a necklace. When I had taken it off, the lust had stopped. What did I need to take off this time? How could I do this?

Dark, it's dark, you're not supposed to sleep. Remember, you're not supposed to sleep. Close off your mind…

It was like the last plug had been put into place in my mind. I closed off my mind. Drew back into the confines of my own being. And panic started to overwhelm me for good now.

I was in bed. In the middle of the vampiric day, when Lissa and Christian had just taken off, god knows where to, because us being under compulsion had scared them. Of course! Their guardians under compulsion. Them easy targets. Well, as easy a target as a psyched-up spirit user and angry fire user could be.

"Don't fall asleep, Dimitri," I commanded. I scrambled over his half-conscious body to get out of bed. I needed to clear my head. Both our heads. Though mine felt clouded by the rising panic much more than by compulsion now.

"Don't you start, too, Rose," Dimitri mumbled sleepily.

"It's day for us, Dimitri," I told him harshly while dressing myself haphazardly.

"It's not. Rose."

I roughly took his shoulders and gave him a hard shake. Locking my eyes into his, I said: "It's like the lust charm necklace. Do you remember the necklace, Dimitri?"

"Of course I do," he said. Then he added, with a dopey smile: "How could I not?"

"I know," I said impatiently. "But it was a lust charm! This is compulsion, too! You have to fight it! We're not supposed to sleep!"

How would I get him out of this daze, if there was no necklace to take off? Where was the charm planted? Or had we been compelled? If so, he should be able to shake it. If it was a charm… was it like the grains of silver we had found in the water users' arms? Lissa had mentioned dots of spirit in us… Where were they? How could we get them out?

I wished Lissa had told us where in our bodies she had seen the spirit. How could it have gotten into us? It would have required an open wound. I would remember that, wouldn't I? Or could the memory of that be compelled out of me? The last time I had had an open wound was when… when I had cut myself. With a throwing knife. Tim had healed me…

Oh my god. Tim.

"Dimitri!" I shrieked. "Did you cut yourself recently? Did you have any open wound?"

"No, I'm fine, Rose. Let's get some sleep now, okay?"

"I need you to focus, Dimitri! Did you hurt yourself in the past week or two? Did Tim heal you? Dimitri, you have to remember!"

"Oh, now that you mention it, Tim was nice enough to heal me when I chipped some wood last week. I really don't know why I even did that. It's not like we need any chipped wood. He healed me really well, though."

"Where was that? Where did he heal you?" I almost jumped in his lap.

"Behind the Moroi training field," Dimitri said, bewildered. "Why?"

"No, where was the wound? Where were you injured?"

"The leg, but it's really all gone. No need to worry."

I felt the skin where he'd gestured, on his thigh, close to the knee. When I pressed my thumb down, I could feel a little hard knob under the skin.

No need to worry my ass.

I got up from the bed, hoping Dimitri wouldn't fall asleep while I was gone and never wake up again. Barefoot, but dressed, I went to the kitchen. This was Dimitri's domain, usually. I only helped out with the easy tasks. All the same, I knew where he kept the kitchen knives. I was aware of everything in our apartment that could be used as a weapon, from screwdrivers to toothpicks.

His eyes were closed when I came back.

"Dimitri?"

"Hmmm…"

It was probably for the better that he was half out of it for what was coming. I sat down on the edge of the bed on his side. He hadn't bothered to cover himself with the duvet. The leg with the silver enclosed was still exposed. I let my hand glide over it so he wouldn't start at my touch. Because he would certainly start at what came next.

I positioned the knife over the knob I had felt. I had chosen the smallest one, but one with a keen edge. I didn't want to butcher around on him using a blunt knife. This was going to be surgical.

When the pain registered with him, the knife was already out and flung far away. I pressed down on the edges of the small cut I had made. A tiny bloody orb surfaced. I had to suppress the urge to vomit.

"Rose, what the hell?" Dimitri raged. He was wide awake all of a sudden. "Did you just cut me?" he asked incredulously upon seeing the small red line on his leg. The cut was no longer than half an inch.

"Yes," I replied. I took the spirit orb between my thumb and my forefinger. What did you do with charmed objects? Weren't they some kind of toxic waste? I settled with putting it on the dresser.

"Why would you do that?" Dimitri was still baffled, but at least the sleepiness seemed to have left him.

"We were under a compulsion spell. Apparently one that made us believe it was time to sleep."

"But we…" Dimitri looked around himself, taking in his surroundings. The open blinds. The display of the alarm clock on the bedside table.

"Lissa and Christian were here earlier, do you remember? We need to get to them."

That broke through to him. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, battle-ready in an instant. Then he realized he was partly undressed.

"Call them," he told me curtly. While he scrambled for a shirt, I scrambled for my phone.

"Lissa, come on, pick up," I muttered against the dialing tone. "Damn it. She's not answering."

"Try Christian. Meanwhile, where would they have gone?"

"Out of Court, definitely. Christian would have suspected Tim immediately."

"Tim," Dimitri spat. "What does he want?"

"Judging from the fact of whose guardians he tried to get out of the equation?" Christian's phone took me to voice mail. "I can't reach Christian either!"

"Why would he want Lissa and Christian?"

"Lissa. He wants Lissa." I could beat myself right now. "He has a thing for her. He's liked her all along."

"That doesn't make sense! Why would he get rid of _us_ if he just wants to get close to Lissa? If not to abduct her, and that would be taking it a little too far for a lovesick boy."

"Blast it, Dimitri, he's a spirit user! And apparently one who's been using much more spirit than he let on. He's probably mental! Logic doesn't come to bear!"

"We need to inform the guardians."

"No," I immediately stopped him. "They might be charmed. Who knows what they'd do? He might compel them into attacking us."

"Speaking of which," Dimitri said, studying me. "How did you break the compulsion?"

"I'm trained to return to my own mind. I've learned it from the bond."

"So, there's still silver inside you."

"There is." My surgical kitchen knife was lying on a pile of clothes in a corner. Not exactly antiseptic, but dhampirs didn't catch gangrene easily. "Which is why I need you to do a little operation on me, now."

He made the cut quick and efficient, extracting a tiny sphere of silver from my shoulder where I had cut myself with the throwing knife. We didn't waste time on band-aids. We were out of the apartment and running for a car in a minute.

I called Hans and had him check whether Tim could be found anywhere on Court while we were speeding towards the guardian parking garage. It quickly turned out he couldn't.

"We can't even be sure we can trust Hans," Dimitri said. "He could be under a spell, too."

"True," I said. "So we're on our own. How do we find them?"

"I can track Christian using his phones," Dimitri said.

"You can do that?"

"Sure. Programmed it. Have to have a means to find him when he runs of, don't I?"

"That would be a valuable training," I grunted. "How to find my missing charge."

I drove while Dimitri took out his own phone and punched on it. I raced up the driveway, stopping with screeching wheels in front of the entrance guards only to take off again, leaving black marks on the road.

"I have a signal," Dimitri said. "Keep going on the road."

"How far are they?"

"Not far. They must have stopped pretty soon after they left."

We raced through the darkness. I never wished for the bond as much as I did now. Lissa was in danger, and I had no idea where she was. I mentally slapped myself for letting myself be backtracked by the same trick that got me once before. How could I not have realized something was going on? I should have been faster in getting my act together when Lissa told me I was under the influence of spirit. This cannot happen again, I vowed silently. I should get Lissa to train me in fighting against compulsion and spells.

Traffic was thin; we didn't share the road with many other cars. The sun would soon be coming up over the horizon. It was that time of the night that humans only rarely got to experience.

There was a lone pedestrian on the side of the road. Long blonde hair caught the silver moonlight.

I swerved the car violently and skidded to a halt on the shoulder of the road.

"Lissa! That was Lissa!" I screamed. I jumped out of the car without waiting for Dimitri and started jogging back along the road; Dimitri caught up with me easily. We had passed Lissa and overtaken her before I stopped the car.

I could see her pale figure in the distance. She was running. Running away from us.

"Lissa!" I called. "It's us! We're back to normal!"

Lissa stopped when she heard me. She was standing on the roadside, all alone in the dark. I made my legs carry me faster.

"Liss! Are you okay? Where's Christian?"

She was breathing heavily from running. Her eyes were wide, and she instantly grabbed my arms when I reached her.

"He's stopping him… he had more silver… I took it to disable it… or put distance between us if I couldn't… I can't… Christian's stopping him. He told me…"

Between her panting and the sobs that started to break out of her, it was difficult to understand her. I couldn't make much sense of what she was saying either, but what got through to me was that Christian was by himself, taking on a raving spirit user.

"Is it Tim?" I asked her urgently. She could only nod.

"Where are they?" Dimitri asked in a hard voice. Lissa pointed into the darkness. There was a shimmer of light on the horizon that was not the sunrise. It was fire.

"He had us crash the car up there. I had to go and take the silver, or he would still have you guys under control…"

"No, Dimitri," I called. Dimitri had started to go into the direction Lissa had pointed. "I'll go. I can withstand compulsion better than you."

I could see emotions warring in his face; what would seem like an impenetrable guardian mask was an open display for me. Now that his soul was so familiar to me, I could discern the feelings that he repressed and tried not to let to the surface.

"This is it, Dimitri," I said. "It's us or our charges. Now's the time we need to make the right decision. I should go and deal with Tim, and you need to let me go even though it's dangerous. I need you to stay and take care of Lissa."

We were staring into each other's eyes. He nodded tensely.

I took off.

Lissa had managed to get a good distance between her and the fight between Tim and Christian. I ran past our car, leaving it for Dimitri. The risk of Strigoi coming would be too great to take Lissa on the open road, and I was running fast.

I found Christian's old little car on the roadside next to an exit. It had slipped from the road into the underbrush on the shoulder. The car seemed barely scratched, but it would need some help in getting out of there. From here, Lissa and Christian must have walked on foot. The exit road led into the outskirts of a nearby town; the road sign said Foulton.

Following the fire's glow, I went on. Soon, the trees that surrounded the street gave way to the first building; an old mansion that was almost grown over by the forest. I passed it and reached a row of low buildings; storage space or something. A path led behind them. I could see a block of flats further ahead, but the fire was behind these storage buildings. I could see smoke rising from behind them.

This didn't seem like a much populated area; nevertheless, the fire would be noticed. I needed to get Christian out of here quickly, before the local fire brigade and curious onlookers would appear.

Heat assaulted me when I left the storage flats behind me and neared the burning building. It was more of a shed than an actual house; there was no need to worry about anybody sleeping in there being surprised by the fire, at least as long as the fire didn't spread to the adjacent building. Going inside wasn't an option anymore, because one wall was completely up in flames already. The building was far from stable by this point. Whatever use Christian had made of his magic, his fire must have spread fast, or people would already have noticed.

I approached the area carefully, taking cover behind discarded site vehicles and building equipment. The house the shed belonged to must have been on an abandoned construction site. While I inched closer to the blazing heat of the fire, I planned my moves. Knocking Tim unconscious before he even noticed me would probably be the safest option. I didn't want to engage him in a fight. I had seen spirit users battle it out, and I did not want to come between that. I could only hope that Christian had managed to keep Tim at bay so far.

Suddenly, a ball of fire came loose from the flames and flew right at me. There was no time to think; I plunged to the side, landing face-down on a drenched suburban lawn. The fire hissed over me, probably leaving me with a few inches of singed hair.

"Christian!" I hissed into the direction from where the ball had come. "Stop it! It's me!"

"Rose?" came the answer from somewhere within the flames. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to help you, you idiot! Don't roast me!"

"I thought this was some kind of mind trick again," he said. I could see him now darting out of the flames as if they were nothing. He was drenched in sweat and looked positively ravaged in all kinds of senses, but that was probably as much from his proximity to the heat than the fighting and the strain of using magic. He came nearer, but stopped a few feet off, watching me pick myself up from the ground. "I never had auditory hallucinations, though. And…" He reached out his arm tentatively and touched a strand of my hair. "No tactile ones either. Let's just hope you're really you."

He drew me back towards the flames, ducking close to a wall as yet untouched by his magic fire.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"Somewhere around here. He tries to hit me with things as soon as he sees me, so I stay out of sight and try the same with fire. Lissa…" He stopped himself as if not trusting me – or his senses – enough to confide information about Lissa to me.

"We found her. Dimitri's with her." I said.

Christian breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. We should just get out of here, then. That guy is seriously de-"

The burning wood to the side of us exploded.

We both instinctively shielded our heads with our arms. Too late, I realized that that wouldn't help me when fire rained down on me. But although I was pelted with splinters of wood and debris, I couldn't feel any burns. Christian was magically shielding me, I realized: he was keeping the fire from touching me, stripping the flames from the flying particles in midair two feet away from us. Still, I felt like I was in an oven. My exposed skin already felt crispy.

"Deranged!" Christian finished grimly. Fire erupted in his open palm, making me shrink away from him. Then, he shot a fire ball somewhere into the darkness; for a brief moment, the heat was so intense I felt my clothes singe.

The fire ball stopped in midair. The glow illuminated the surroundings; I could see a figure standing behind where the invisible wall had stopped the flames.

"I'm going to sneak behind him," I hissed into Christian's ear. He nodded. I got up and I stole away from the heat of the burning shed.

A few feet away, refreshing coolness enveloped me. I brought enough distance between me and the fire to be protected by darkness. Then, I skirted the burning building into the direction I had seen Tim.

I found cover behind a few trees and another shed that thankfully hadn't caught fire yet. The nearer I came to where I expected Tim, the more carefully I treaded. The exposure to the bright light of the fire had made my eyes almost blind in the darkness. I had to rely almost entirely on my sense of hearing so as not to stumble right into the enemy.

Suddenly, I froze. Alternating blue and red light illuminated the walls of the shed. There was a police car nearby, flashlight on but siren muted. I hadn't heard the car approaching; the crackling of the fire must have covered it. Now, though, I heard a door slamming; footsteps nearing my hiding place.

"Not the best situation to be caught in, young man," I heard a voice say eerily close to me. A police officer. And then, scarily, even closer to me: "I guess so. I'm not planning in being caught, though."

Tim. That was Tim's voice. And he was about one step away from me.

My breath caught when I heard what he said next. His voice wasn't laced with the charm and warmth I had come to associate with Lissa compelling someone. His voice was cold and hard. But I could detect the same note of power and strength in it. "You have a gun. Shoot the person you see over there, by the fire."

I didn't even have the time to wince before I heard a shot ring out.

I couldn't do anything; I was trapped in my hiding place, feet away from Tim. There was no telling what he would do to me when he found me. I didn't give myself half a chance against an angry spirit user. Hand-to-hand battle? I thrived in that. But going against someone who could stone me with things from a distance, all the while stopping me from defending myself or tricking me into thinking I was already dead? I would have tried anyway, but I couldn't think only of myself now. Christian was here, and he was in much more danger than I was, considering Tim knew he was here and had a grudge against him. That shot. Oh my god, don't let them have shot Christian.

"Thank you," I heard Tim say. Politeness in compulsion. What a sick concept. "Please forget you did this. Now, I could do with a lift. You will take me with you."

Please, don't, don't let them have shot Christian. Why else would Tim just leave all of a sudden?

My heart was beating overtime while I was waiting for the car to leave. Two sets of footsteps moved towards the blue and red light. Two car doors opened and slammed shut. The engine came to life; the car drove off.

I leaped up as soon as the light was gone. By now, most of the wooden shed had caught fire; it was difficult to see into the brightness of the flames.

"Christian!" I screamed. I hoped Tim hadn't fooled me into thinking he had left just to jump out from behind the nearest tree, but I couldn't stop myself. "CHRISTIAN!"

I rounded the flames, coughing from the smoke. I could hardly see anything against the brightness of the flames. Sweat was pouring from my face; everything in me screamed to put distance between me and the flames, to run into the velvety coolness of the surrounding darkness. But I had to find Christian first.

"Christian!" I called again.

There: a figure lying on the ground, too close to the burning inferno. I braved the heat, barely able to breathe between the suffocating heat and the smoke. Christian was on his side. I dropped down next to him and immediately set to turn him around and pull him away from the fire. But I froze.

Flames seemed to reach out to him; his head was wreathed in flames, but they didn't burn him. Maybe they didn't hurt him, either, but there was no way to tell. Nothing hurt him now. He was lying motionless, his eyes half open, unblinking, unseeing.

* * *

 **Come on. If that ending doesn't deserve a review...!**


	10. Second Life

The fire lost its heat. The smoke lost its sting. I was still sitting way too close to the raging inferno, but I couldn't move. I sat there and choked from smoke and sobs alike. Frozen, the seconds seemed to blend into minutes. Christian was dead. He was dead. A bullet had penetrated his heart; it wasn't like when I had been shot, when the bullets had hit my chest, but had miraculously missed my heart. This wasn't a near-hit. He was dead. And no Lissa there to save him. To bring him back.

I lost the feeling for how long I sat there and watched him. The fire kept on raging next to me; it seemed to burn itself out. Maybe it missed its creator. Maybe Christian's flames could only survive as long as he was there to nurture them. They even seemed to flee back to him. Even though the fire died down next to us, the fiery wreath around his head kept on burning.

It was a while before I stretched a shaking hand out over his face to close his eyes. There. There was no comparing him to a sleeping person. Even though the hole in his chest was barely visible on his dark shirt, the fire painted his face in a way that made it impossible to see sleep in it. It was more like he had turned into the statue of the god of fire. Which had fallen into the flames of his own making.

Time started to come over me again when I heard another car approaching. I don't know what made me so sure it was Lissa. But I knew. And time started again. Suddenly, the world was full of action. It was only seconds before Lissa would come and see her dead love lying in a rim of fire on the ground. Yet, everything that became active in me was my heart. It beat even more frantically than ever before, as if it could spare Lissa the pain by beating it away.

I heard them calling for me and for Christian, both Lissa's and Dimitri's voices. They sounded worried. They didn't know yet that worry wasn't covering it.

"Rose?" Lissa had spotted me. In the fraction of a second, she also spotted the motionless figure on the ground.

And the expression on my face. I don't know when I had started to cry, but when I turned to Lissa, I became aware that my cheeks were wet with tears.

Fear must give her powers beyond her body, because she managed to outdistance Dimitri in their race to reach us. I wished I could stop her, slow her approach, but she was there in a heartbeat, the fire illuminating her blonde hair to create a halo around her beautiful face.

"No…" Her voice was barely a whisper. She bent over Christian's still figure, putting a hand over his unbeating heart, touching his face.

Dimitri slowed his approach when he was almost with us. The last steps seemed to take all his energy, and he dropped to the ground beside me as if the cords that held him upright had been cut. Neither of us could do anything to comfort the other. This was the second time he found me weeping over the dead body of one of my best friends. This was the second time he was looking at the dead body of a charge of his, the second time his assigned Moroi had died, the friend he had sworn to protect and give his life for.

Maybe it was this thought that finally thawed me from my stupor.

"We need to get out of here." My voice sounded as if I had a cold. I knew it was cruel to make them move so fast. But it was a miracle the fire hadn't been noticed yet. We had to get away, or we would seriously endanger the integrity of the vampiric race's secret.

"No," Lissa said again. Suddenly, she didn't sound weak or afraid any more. She sounded determined. She placed her hands on Christian's chest and took a deep breath, and I realized what she was about to do.

"No, Lissa, don't!" A weird whimper escaped me, but I couldn't stop it. "It's too late! It's been …I don't know, twenty, thirty minutes! Lissa, please, it's too late!"

She didn't listen. I could almost feel the magic she was putting out, the warmth, the glow of it. I heard Dimitri groan. Looking at him, I almost broke at seeing the pain on his face.

Another whimper fought its way out of me. I wanted to reach over to Lissa, stop her from what she was doing. I had sat here for all this time, watching him. It was too late. It was way too late.

Dimitri gripped my hands. I couldn't fight him. We sat frozen, as if spellbound by watching Lissa work herself out by channeling energy into …

It just couldn't work. He was too far gone. Lissa was tiring herself out for nothing. Her face grew strained. She was panting with the effort. She kept working away, and it was only after nothing happened after several minutes that the tears started flowing over her face.

The last flames died at the same time that Lissa stopped the magic. She didn't pass out, as I was afraid she would. She blinked, coming out of her spirit trance. The scene looked so different now; Christian was no longer bathed in the angry orange light of the fire. Instead, the sun's first morning rays took all the color away from him and the rest of the world.

Now he looked like he was sleeping. With his eyes closed, his black hair ruffled, his face turned slightly to the side.

Lissa sighed in exhaustion. Her eyes closed. She slid down slowly, coming to a rest over Christian's chest.

I caught her shoulders, but just held her still. I was again paralyzed; I didn't have the energy to make her move.

Then I felt Dimitri's hand close around my arm. His fingers dug into me painfully.

"He's breathing," he whispered. "Rose. He's breathing."

It couldn't be. My head started shaking before my voice could answer. But then, I watched him again.

No, it couldn't be. I had to imagine it. It couldn't be true.

His chest was rising and falling ever so slightly. He was breathing.

"Leave," Dimitri said, his voice hoarse. "We have to leave. Now."

In a trance myself, I got up; this was unreal. I made Lissa get up and supported her. She was close to passing out now. Dimitri picked up Christian. We went to the car.

"We have to go fast," I said. Finding my voice made me find my wits. I couldn't drift off now. "Lissa needs a feeder."

He nodded.

I put Lissa in the front seat. She was barely conscious, but trying to keep her eyes open.

"It's okay, Liss," I whispered to her. "You've done what you could. It's going to be okay."

She didn't have the strength to talk, but a few more tears escaped her eyes before she allowed them to close.

Dimitri had laid Christian down on the rear bench seat. He was bending over him to feel his pulse. When he drew his head back from out of the car, he turned to me with a look so desperate I forgot to breathe for a moment.

"Roza," he said, his voice cracking.

"Dimitri," I whispered. I knew we didn't have time; I knew we needed to leave ten minutes ago. But I couldn't help to stop and put my arms around him. "There's nothing you could have done. Don't blame yourself. He's alive."

He took a shaking breath, but that was all the emotion we could allow ourselves. He got into the driver's seat, and I squeezed into the space between the rear bench and the front seats, so I could watch over Christian. He was unconscious, unnaturally pale but breathing regularly.

"We can't go back to Court," Dimitri said. "We still don't know who's influenced."

"We need a motel," I said.

Dimitri pulled back into the road and continued into the opposite direction from Court. The silence between us was tense. Lissa kept turning her head around to see us in the back seats. I kept staring at Christian's face and listening for his breaths to make sure they didn't stop. Dimitri kept his glance straight ahead, focusing on nothing but the road and gripping the steering wheel so tight I was afraid it might snap.

We drove for an hour until we decided to stop; we wanted to bring a little distance between us and wherever Tim was now. We had no idea whether he had gone back to Court, of course, but we had to settle for something.

I stayed in the car with a sleeping Lissa and an unconscious Christian while Dimitri checked us into the little motel we had found. Thankfully, it was still early enough in the morning so that no one was out when we brought them inside. Lissa woke up when I shook her gently; she leaned on me, watching Dimitri carry Christian out of the car with drowsy desperation.

"Did he wake up?" she whispered half into my shoulder.

"Not yet." I tried to sound comforting. "Let him sleep a while. You're going to need some sleep, too."

Inside, Dimitri was depositing Christian on one of the two queen-sized beds, carefully resting his head on a pillow. I led Lissa to the other side of the bed and made her lie down, too. She rolled to her side to face Christian, reaching for him and pressing her forehead against his shoulder. Even in her addled state, she was distraught. Like Dimitri and me, the fear that maybe she hadn't brought Christian all the way back seemed to get through to her.

Lissa closed her eyes, and exhaustion got the better of her. She fell into an uneasy sleep within a minute. I was perched on the bed beside her, still holding onto her. Dimitri was crouched on the floor next to Christian.

I watched as he slowly pulled the soot-stained black shirt up to Christian's chest to reveal smooth, unblemished skin, albeit smeared with blood in places where the shirt was torn.

Our eyes met. In that instant, I knew we were both trying to mutely console the other, trying to convey the feeling that everything was going to be okay; just like I had told Lissa. I was immeasurably glad that Dimitri was with me. I hoped he could read that in my eyes, too.

"They are alive," Dimitri croaked. I nodded. I got up when he did, and walked over to him to put my arms around him.

"What are we going to do now?" he whispered into the crook of my neck. He was holding me tightly.

"We'll have to wait," I told him. I was stroking his back soothingly. We were swaying slightly, moving together in our embrace. "We'll have to wait to see if he wakes up."

"And what if he doesn't?" Dimitri's voice was almost cracking again. "What if he doesn't wake up? "

"Then we'll get him to a Moroi hospital," I told him, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "And they will know how to help him."

I don't think I fooled him, but he stayed quiet. When he talked again, his voice was carefully controlled again. "What are we going to do about Tim?"

I sighed. "I don't know…"

"We have to call Hans," Dimitri said.

"He'll have to have everybody checked for silver in their bodies," I added.

"What if Tim has Hans under his control?"

"We've got to start somewhere," I said, unconvinced. We were still holding on to each other. Outside, doors opened and closed; the human day was starting.

"Sonya," he said. "We have to tell Sonya. She's harder to influence, being a spirit user herself. She has to see to it that everybody is checked."

"She will need instructions from Lissa. And Hans has to be debriefed by Lissa, too."

"We have to wait for her to wake up," Dimitri said. "For both of them."

To wait was really all we could do. Dimitri left to get some food and water. I settled into one of the chairs that stood by the window in the back of the room, waiting for him to come back and the others to wake up. Dimitri returned, immediately looking at the two in the bed expectantly and disappointed when they were still the same. He left again to find a feeder, something that would take a while because the next feeder station was about forty miles away.

Lissa woke up when he'd been gone for half an hour. She hadn't slept nearly enough to make up for the exhaustion of what she had done, but I guess she couldn't calm down enough. The first thing she did after her eyes opened was take a good look at Christian.

"Hey Liss," I said softly. She blinked and groggily took in the room.

"Rose… Where are we? I was so out of it earlier, I didn't notice." She struggled into a sitting position, and I went to sit down next to her on the bed, putting my arm around her.

"A motel in a hopefully safe distance from Court and everything."

She'd taken Christian's hand in one of hers; with the other, she was stroking his face gently. The look she was giving him made my heart clench.

"Why won't he wake up?" she whispered.

"You healed him," I said. "He used a lot of magic before. He must be as tired as you are. You need to give him time."

She leaned her head on my shoulder.

"I can't believe Tim did that," she said. "And I refused to believe Christian when he told me something was up. I could have stopped this."

"What happened after you left our place?" I asked.

"We drove out of Court. We didn't really know where to go, but putting a safe distance between us and Court seemed like a good idea. We lost my guardians, because we didn't know whether we could trust them. Then, Christian lost control over the car – maybe Tim made him see something again. Oh, Rose, how could I refuse to see what was happening?"

"Well, it seems like Tim was pretty good at hiding things. I think Christian was right all along: Tim wanted to get close to you."

"He offered us help when we crashed. We got out and walked towards the city to get a rental or a bus or something, and Tim just drove by and asked if we needed a lift. As if nothing had happened."

"He didn't know you could use spirit again," I suddenly realized. "The last thing you told him, you couldn't. He thought you wouldn't be able to notice the spirit on Dimitri and me."

"Maybe," Lissa said. "He realized we were on to something when we refused him. But even then, he didn't turn completely. He pretended we were all wrong, played innocent."

"He still didn't want you to think anything bad of him?"

"We told him to back off. Then he… he started doing things to Christian again. Christian fought back – with his fists, that is – and…" She twisted to reach into her jeans pocked. When she drew out her hand, two silver rings were lying on her palm. "Tim dropped this. I looked at them and saw that there was a lot of spirit within them, and… something about you and Dimitri. My theory is that there literally is something of you in there. A drop of blood or something. It's disgusting to think about it, but I think this is how he made the compulsion work so powerfully from a distance. This connects him with the silver within the person he wants to control."

I stared at the rings in her hand. I had never been as revolted by an innate object. This was twisted.

"I told Christian what I thought. He said I had to get away and disable the rings, un-charm them. Tim, he… he wanted me to come with him. But Christian held him up while I ran, only, I couldn't disable the charms. I don't know how. We thought you wouldn't be able to shake the spell…"

"I got rid of mine. I think Dimitri came out of his when Tim dropped his ring."

"I shouldn't have left him alone with him." Lissa's voice cracked a little. "I shouldn't have left!"

Lissa went back to sleep soon after this, still exhausted. I was left with nothing to do but watch their pale faces and listen to their soft breathing. It was a calming sound, slow and steady.

Dimitri returned with a human girl. He rented another room for her to wait in until Lissa and Christian would need her. There was no question of one of us sleeping; we wouldn't be able to sleep anyways. We huddled together in one chair, me virtually on his lap. We waited the day away; our phones put to mute to escape the frantic calls that were bound to come from Hans and the curtains drawn close to keep the night inside and prying eyes out.

I quietly recapitulated Lissa's story for Dimitri. He was as put out as I was.

"It's a weakness, though," he mused. "If he needs the silver connection, it's something we can take away. If we get to the silver objects."

Darkness again set in outside. I hadn't set foot out of the motel room all day. With the new vampiric day, I was starting to feel tired. As a dhampir, I should be more resilient than that, but even dhampirs have their limit. I dozed off a little in Dimitri's lap, but I was still too keyed up to properly sleep.

When the moon started to flood the room in soft, silver light, I took to watching Christian again.

And he opened his eyes.


	11. Just Another Day in the Life

Dimitri and I simultaneously held our breaths, not making a move in case we'd break something. Christian blinked, and, before he was even fully awake, seemed to realize he wasn't where he should be. He winced and tried to sit up, momentarily confused at finding Lissa sleeping at his side, her head on his shoulder restricting his movements.

Then Dimitri and I were by his side, both having shot up from our chair and dropped down beside the bed in one swift motion.

"Christian," I called him softly. "Hey, calm down. No need to get all worked up." I pushed him back down on the bed, where Lissa was disentangling herself from the blankets. His sudden start had woken her; she was almost as disoriented as he was, but seeing her blink at him sleepily stopped his agitation a little.

Judging from Christian's frantic look, I could tell that waking up from the dead was no pleasant experience. All the same, he eyed me with something of his habitual glower. "I'm not," he mumbled. Automatic defensive mode kicking in, I guess. Glad he still had that.

"You're okay," Lissa breathed in a still sleep-heavy voice. She was visibly breaking down with relief right now; so was Dimitri, I could clearly see, but he was making a valiant effort to stay composed. "You're awake. You're okay." She put her head back down on his shoulder, closing her eyes briefly with her hand placed on his chest.

Over her quivering head, Christian had a good view of Dimitri and me holding our breaths while watching them. "Stop staring at me like that," he murmured, pathetically failing to sound annoyed.

Then Lissa resurfaced and engaged him in a very deep kiss, so Dimitri and I had time to indulge in our own little break-down and let ourselves dissolve into each other's arms.

"Thank god," Dimitri whispered into my shoulder, so that only I could hear.

"You're all okay," Christian half-asked, half-stated when Lissa let go of him. He wriggled up so he could sit properly and rubbed his face wearily. "What happened to Tim?"

"He left," I said quietly. We hadn't talked about how we would break the news to Christian. You don't just tell someone that the reason they're feeling so crappy is that they died and were brought back by a spirit user. I, for one, would be quite content to just let him recover without knowing from what exactly for now.

"But why am I…" Christian gestured to the bed helplessly.

I wanted to catch Lissa's eyes to get a read on what she thought, but she was looking at nothing but him. "Tim had you shot," I finally said.

Christian's face instantly told me that he gathered more from this answer than I had intended. He studied Lissa's face, which was clearly showing how exhausted she still was. Then he shot Dimitri and me glances. We both didn't have the clarity of mind to wipe our faces clean of the impact of the last 24 hours, I guess, so our faces told him what he needed to figure this out.

"Did I survive that?" Christian's voice was quiet and more serious than I ever liked to hear him.

It was Lissa who answered him. "No," she said simply.

When I had learned that I had died, it had been years after I actually had. I had had time to get used to the fact that weird things happened around me. That I had some sort of connection to Lissa that was more than people usually had. By the time I was told that the reason for all of this was that I had been dead and Lissa had resurrected me with her spirit powers, it kind of fell into place. It explained more than it raised questions.

When Jill had died and been brought back by Adrian, I'd been the one to tell her. With Adrian out of the count with exhaustion and spirit backwash, that duty had fallen to me. I had found nothing but blunt words then. I didn't find anything more now.

Instead of stumbling for words and making the situation more awkward than it already was, I decided to bail. Yup, cowardly. To my defense, I think Lissa was all Christian needed now anyway. Well, almost all.

"I'm going to get the feeder," I said, getting up. "You both need some blood."

Dimitri followed me when I quietly slipped through the door into the bland motel corridor. We left Lissa and Christian sitting on the bed locking eyes with each other, Christian's only reaction a slow and pensive nod.

We both breathed a little more freely when we were alone with each other.

"I still have trouble wrapping my head around how this can be possible," Dimitri murmured. We stood in front of the feeder's door, but neither of us seemed eager to knock. "You're saying it might have been up to thirty minutes until Lissa and I arrived. It should have been too late."

"It should have been," I agreed. Part of my mind told me to say something like, _We should be glad it wasn't_ , but I knew very clearly: it should have been too late for Lissa to save Christian. He had been dead and after such a long time, he should have had no other choice but to remain dead.

"If there's no boundary to this…" Dimitri stopped himself.

"I think there still is," I said pensively. We were both talking in voices so low that even though we were still standing right in front of the feeder girl's door, they could not be heard from within. "He… he didn't change. When you came… he was still the same as he'd been when he… when he was shot."

"But that can't be," Dimitri countered, shaking his head in confusion. "This sounds like time stopped for him. How can that be?"

"I think…" I stopped myself, but I could see no other logical way for what had happened to have happened. "I think it was the fire," I continued. "It was… I think it was kind of _drawing back_ to him. As if it was feeding him energy – enough to keep him… _almost_ alive."

"The fire extinguished when Lissa finished healing," Dimitri whispered.

"Seems like spirit is not the only element we have gaps in our knowledge about. And spirit is still a mystery, after all. The more we know of it, the more questions we have." And it was getting kind of annoying, to be honest.

We finally pulled ourselves together and knocked on the feeder's door. The feeder Dimitri had brought was a pink-haired woman in her thirties, or maybe younger and just looking spent. Back in our own room, Lissa and Christian were huddled together on the bed, and it needed some cajoling to get the two into letting go of each other for long enough to drink their fill. They both looked much better afterwards. Christian still seemed dazed, but that surprised none of us.

"What happens now?" Lissa asked when Dimitri had brought the feeder back into the next room. I had made myself comfortable and was sitting cross-legged on the foot of the bed, while Dimitri had taken a little more distance, sitting in the chair I had spent the night in. "Do we go back to Court? By the way, aren't they frantically looking for me right now? I'm not meaning to be egotistical, but…"

"Hans must be close to having a heart attack," I replied. "We called him yesterday to ask whether he'd seen Tim, but we didn't tell him you'd left. How did you manage to shake your guardians?" I felt for the poor guys. Having your charge suddenly disappear without a trace? Every guardian's worst nightmare. With the queen as your charge, that sentiment grew about a thousendfold.

"I just made them not notice me when we left the room," she said absent-mindedly.

"Spirit coming in handy, doesn't it," I remarked. Lissa looked up at me with a weird glint in her eyes.

"I would certainly say so," she said with a hard stare. "Tim didn't know I was off the meds. Last he knew I was out of the count for spirit business. He must have thought I wouldn't be able to detect the magic in you two." She paused. "You got rid of it."

"We practiced a little do-it-yourself surgery. Silver's gone."

"What was that about the other silver items you said you had to disable?" Dimitri piped in. "The rings?"

Lissa produced the two silver rings from her pocket again, frowning down on the offensive objects. "It's how he kept the connection to you," she recounted to Dimitri what she'd told me last night. "There's a spell in them that links them to the silver in a person. It seems like every person has to have their own connecting object. I can't see it well at the moment, I'm still pretty out of spirit… But I think that this is what makes his spells so long lasting and controllable over a distance. This is a master spellcaster's work." She blinked. "I couldn't have been more wrong about Tim."

Somehow, she managed to convey all her apologies and her regret for not believing Christian's claims into that sentence. Maybe Christian wouldn't have been killed if we'd acted on his assertions. But then, he hadn't stayed dead because Lissa had wiped herself out to bring him back. She'd made up for it, in my view.

He seemed to think the same; he just pulled her closer. The two were still glued together, leaning against the headboard.

"We have to consider our next move," Dimitri reminded us. "Court is dangerous with Tim still on the loose. We have no idea who might be manipulated. Not going back is dangerous, too, because Lissa's unexplained absence will not only raise questions, but probably cause riots."

"And what do we do about Tim, in the long run?" Christian asked, leaning his head back on the wall. "We have to find him, and we have to stop him, and I don't know what you take on this is, but I for my part think that that isn't going to be fun."

"Dealing with Tim has to be our priority," Lissa reasoned. "He's a threat. If he's at Court now… But what if he…" She involuntarily shot Christian a worried look that both he and I immediately caught and understood. What if he tries to kill his alleged rival again?

"It's got to be us," Christian told her gently. "We have you. A spirit user. You can at least tell us if we're under compulsion. If the guardians apprehended him, he might just compel them all into letting him go. We don't even know the full extent of his powers yet."

Lissa sighed resignedly and leaned her head against his shoulder. "So we're going to hunt him."

"Wow, wow," I interjected. I had listened to their plotting mutely, but that was going a little too far. "We can't just take the Moroi Queen and take her on a quest around the country to find a rogue spirit user. Our duty is to keep you safe, remember?"

"And how will you do that, Rose?" Christian asked me, his usual snark making a reappearance. "When he can bring everyone around us to do his bidding? He could compel any guardian into attacking us. Do you want Lissa to stay isolated until you arrest him all by yourself? Look, I know what he can do. He was already successful in killing me once, I'm not keen on a second time. We'll have to be on our guards, but we have to go after him. We're the only ones who can do it."

"He's right, Rose," Dimitri seconded him unexpectedly. I turned around to him, feeling slightly betrayed. His downcast expression softened me immediately, though. "Going back to Court is out of the question. What other option do we have left but to hunt Tim down?"

"What do we say at Court, though?" Christian continued to spin the thread. "Lissa can't just disappear. In that, Dimitri's right. There would be a riot."

"We have to find an excuse for why we need to leave for a while," Lissa mused. "Maybe that I have to go on a diplomatic mission in Europe… or that we're taking a spontaneous vacation…"

"Guys, we're not asking a very important question here," I again interrupted them. They all looked at me as if I wasn't saying the obvious. "Why did Tim do this? What's his motive? The motive is always important in solving a case."

"Yeah, in a Sherlock Holmes movie," Christian scoffed.

"You said he had a thing for Lissa," Dimitri said pensively.

"He definitely had that," Christian growled. Lissa looked at him as if to say, _Sorry that someone's having a crush for me ended in him killing you_. Seriously, that's what her look said. Those two were uncannily quick in coming to terms with this dying and resurrection thing.

"But shouldn't he have been a little more covert in his actions? I mean, come on! He had you crash your car and then pursued Christian to have a magical showdown. It's not like all that increased his chances with you, Lissa."

She frowned. "I think all he wanted was to make you all have something to do so that he could go out with me without interference. He must have planned something to distract you, too, Christian. I don't think he planned it this way. Even Avery had sense enough left to cover up her intentions. It must have gotten out of hand. The first thing he didn't reckon with was for us to suspect him of anything going on. If his plan had worked out, we wouldn't have had any idea of you two missing. You were supposed to be free, but then this confidential meeting was set, and I had to call you. It was only then that we realized something was wrong. An hour later and I would have been free, too…"

"And I would have been in training," Christian took over. "He would have asked you to out for something or other, presumably out of Court. Maybe the presence of guardians you're less close to wouldn't have bothered him, maybe he would have found some way to get rid of them, too. Maybe there's silver the bodies of all of them. There would have been no need for anyone to have been any the wiser."

"But we realized something was up with Rose and Dimitri, and I was able to see spirit, in contrast to what he thought," Lissa continued. "Which also means that he doesn't know I could heal. He must think you're still…"

"…dead," Christian finished grimly. "That might be an advantage. Don't know how it's possible to get the drop on that guy, but it's bound to be a little easier when he's convinced you're six feet under."

"I agree," Dimitri said. I kind of suspected he only wanted to say something to stop our heads from swiveling between Lissa and Christian as they passed the ball between them.

"The question still remains," Christian said. "What do we do now?"

"The silver," Lissa said. "If we find the silver connecting Tim to his compulsion victims, we break his power over them."

"Find?" I asked. "Do you think he's hidden it somewhere?"

"If he has more victims than the two of you, then yes," Lissa replied. "There were no more charmed objects on him, I could see that much. He wouldn't keep them in his room at Court, not with Sonya visiting him from time to time. If there are guardians under his spell, the charms connecting them are hidden somewhere else."

"Where would he hide them?"

"That's what we have to find out. But first, we definitely have to buy us some time at Court," Lissa said. "I think I can make everyone believe that I have to go to a very important and very secret meeting somewhere very far away. But I'll have to tell people in person. If I just call with the news that I won't show up for days, they'll suspect that someone's holding me ransom or something."

I had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I was currently witnessing Lissa plotting a guerrilla move here. Lissa wasn't usually the one to suggest taking up arms against someone. Anyone.

Well, unless they had just heinously killed her boyfriend. I guess that brought out the warrior in her.

"So, we go back to Court," I summed up. "Make everyone believe we're on some super-secret Court business trip. Then we go for Tim." I sighed dramatically. "Great. Just another day in the life of Lissa Dragomir and Rose Hathaway."

"And don't forget their awesome sidekicks," Christian deadpanned. "Dimitri the Warrior God and Christian the Resurrected."

"Good show of black humor," I supported him teasingly. "Keep up the good spirits."

"Or just _the_ spirit," he added.

"If you guys are done joking in the face of death and danger," Lissa interrupted us irritatedly, "can we get going?"

"Are you sure you're both ready to be on the road?" Dimitri cautioned. "I think you could still do with some rest."

"Every minute we wait just gives Tim time to prepare," Christian warded him off. He was already getting out of bed. "Let's just go now."

Dimitri sighed in resignation. "Wise words from Christian the Resurrected."

* * *

 **I needed forever to be satisfied with the first bit of that chapter.** **Did I get it right? Tell me, please! Still waiting for those reviews from you guys!**

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